Michael Kappler, PhD
Director, Head of Research Informatics at IDEAYA Biosciences
Michael Kappler, PhD is the Director, Head of Research Informatics at IDEAYA Biosciences, focusing on R&D solutions for scientific workflow optimization. Previously, he served as Associate Director at IDEAYA and Senior Principal Scientist at Nurix Therapeutics, where he built informatics platforms for biotech research. He is also CEO and Founder of Moonlight Informatics & Computing Knowledge LLC, developing three-dimensional molecular fingerprint technology. Dr. Kappler serves on the Steering Committee of the Pistoia Alliance, supporting pre-competitive collaboration in life sciences. He completed his PhD in Chemistry at UC Santa Cruz under W. Todd Wipke and holds a BS in Chemistry from Eastern Michigan University.
Tamsin Mansley PhD
President at Optibrium Inc
Tamsin Mansley, PhD is the President of Optibrium, Inc and is an experienced drug discovery scientist, problem solver, and leader with over 20 years in the field. She currently heads Optibrium's Application Science team, equipping customers with the resources they need for success.
Tamsin holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of East Anglia, UK, and pursued postdoctoral research in Professor Philip Magnus’s lab at the University of Texas, Austin. She began her career as a medicinal chemist at leading biopharma companies, including Eli Lilly and UCB, before transitioning into application science roles at Tripos, Dotmatics and OpenEye.
Her journey from bench to business leadership reflects a deep commitment to enabling better science through technology, collaboration, and innovation. Tamsin is passionate about improving the way research is done, helping scientists turn data into insights and discoveries more efficiently.
Janice Darlington
Customer Engagement Scientist at Collaborative Drug Discovery
Janice Darlington is a Customer Engagement Scientist at Collaborative Drug Discovery - CDD VAULT. She has supported CDD's scientific community in their research workflows since 2019. Her scientific background spans 27+ years in the San Diego drug discovery landscape. Her first foray in amassing great amounts of scientific data came while working as a research associate equipping and operating the high throughput molecular profiling lab at Merck Research Laboratories - San Diego (MRL-SD). Following the closure of MRL - SD in 2005, Ms. Darlington was recruited by a team of successful drug hunters, who spent a good part of their career at Merck, for a new biotech start-up - Amira Pharmaceuticals. In 2012, Amira was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). Ms. Darlington, having played a significant role in their scientific data workflows, also played a key role in the technology transfer of Amira's LPA program to BMS. Later that year, founding members from Amira would go on to start Pharmakea, where Ms. Darlington was not only a user of CDD Vault, she was the vault administrator. Ms. Darlington holds a B.S. in Microbiology from UC San Diego.
Eric Gifford PhD
Webinar Host and Moderator
Eric Gifford, PhD is a Business Development Consultant at Collaborative Drug Discovery. With previous leadership roles at MSD and Merck, he brings extensive experience in computational toxicology and scientific informatics. During his 14 years at Pfizer, he developed computational methods for drug discovery. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from The University of Toledo.