Xinjun Hou

About Xinjun Hou

A scientific leader building strategy and innovation in computational chemistry & AI/ML…

Experience

1. Head, Computational Chemistry, Internal Medicine and Discovery Network Chemistry

   Pfizer

   Jan 2022 — Present

   A Scientific Leader Building Strategy and Technology Innovations • Built an AI/ML strategy and a platform to deploy AI/ML for medicinal chemistry • Led the effort to evaluate and exploit AI/ML for retrosynthesis, route planning, and reaction condition prediction to enable • Developed initiatives to strengthen core computational chemistry capability for binding free energy prediction and virtual screening. • Established partnerships with technology leaders such as PostEra, XtalPi, MIT, and Stanford University and other partners. Lead and mentor a team of diverse talent to delivery computational application to impact project delivery for broad target families. • The team delivered multiple late-stage clinical candidates in disease areas of oncology, neurosciences, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, including SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitor Nirmatrelvir. A Computational scientist with a proven track record of project impact • Co-developed Central Nervous System Multiparameter Optimization (CNS MPO) for designing drug-like molecules with aligned CNS permeability and ADMT attributes. The CNS MPO and similar algorithms have been used broadly across industry. • Possess a strong technical expertise in structure-based drug design and in silico DMPK modeling. Pioneered in silico-first approach in projects where in silico ADMET models are used in design, in vivo compound selection and dose projection. • Directly contributed to clinical candidates for broad targets such as in Proteases, Kinase, Phosphodiesterase, and GPRC target families of multiple disease areas: BACE, PDE10A, PDE9, GlyT1 Transporter, AMPA Receptor, SARS-CoV-2 MPro