Henry Nguyen, Ph.D. – Asher Biotherapeutics
Please tell us about your background: where you grew up, studied, and why you chose the field you did.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and studied chemistry and biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. From there, I moved to Yale University for a Ph.D. in the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, focusing on X-ray crystallography of protein complexes involved in HIV innate immunity and ubiquitination. Afterwards, I moved west to start my postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco, to study polymerizing membrane remodeling proteins by cryo-EM. I’ve always been interested in protein structure and function.
What does your current position entail? How does it tie into your previous experience, and where is it going?
I’m currently at Asher Biotherapeutics where we pioneer cis-targeted immunotherapies, consisting of antibody-cytokine fusion proteins, to selectively activate only the immune cells that matter and drive a therapeutic effect. Within the protein engineering department, I wear many hats, including molecular biology and all aspects of protein chemistry, but my core focus is on developability assessment. I first started working with proteins during undergrad and have been able to apply the skills I’ve picked up along my journey to my current work to make cis-targeted drugs.
In what context did you first learn about light scattering and Wyatt Technology's instruments?
Back in graduate school, neighboring labs had SEC-MALS and DLS machines that we had access to, but I didn’t routinely use any light scattering instruments until working at Asher. My supervisor used Wyatt instruments at his previous company and had a lot of history working with them. As we progressed toward decision candidate nomination for our lead program, AB248, he knew light scattering would be an important part of our analytics suite.
How has your Wyatt instrumentation contributed to your research and development studies?
Most of the proteins we make are bifunctional fusion proteins that are glycosylated, so their elution on SEC based on molecular weight standards can be misleading. SEC-MALS with the miniDAWN has been critical for determination of the molecular weight and polydispersity of our final material. The ability of SEC-MALS to detect low amounts of aggregation has also been an important part of our toolkit for our QC and developability studies.
SEC-MALS with the miniDAWN has been critical for determination of the molecular weight and polydispersity of our final material.”
Please tell us about your background: where you grew up, studied, and why you chose the field you did.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and studied chemistry and biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. From there, I moved to Yale University for a Ph.D. in the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, focusing on X-ray crystallography of protein complexes involved in HIV innate immunity and ubiquitination. Afterwards, I moved west to start my postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco, to study polymerizing membrane remodeling proteins by cryo-EM. I’ve always been interested in protein structure and function.
What does your current position entail? How does it tie into your previous experience, and where is it going?
I’m currently at Asher Biotherapeutics where we pioneer cis-targeted immunotherapies, consisting of antibody-cytokine fusion proteins, to selectively activate only the immune cells that matter and drive a therapeutic effect. Within the protein engineering department, I wear many hats, including molecular biology and all aspects of protein chemistry, but my core focus is on developability assessment. I first started working with proteins during undergrad and have been able to apply the skills I’ve picked up along my journey to my current work to make cis-targeted drugs.
In what context did you first learn about light scattering and Wyatt Technology's instruments?
Back in graduate school, neighboring labs had SEC-MALS and DLS machines that we had access to, but I didn’t routinely use any light scattering instruments until working at Asher. My supervisor used Wyatt instruments at his previous company and had a lot of history working with them. As we progressed toward decision candidate nomination for our lead program, AB248, he knew light scattering would be an important part of our analytics suite.
How has your Wyatt instrumentation contributed to your research and development studies?
Most of the proteins we make are bifunctional fusion proteins that are glycosylated, so their elution on SEC based on molecular weight standards can be misleading. SEC-MALS with the miniDAWN has been critical for determination of the molecular weight and polydispersity of our final material. The ability of SEC-MALS to detect low amounts of aggregation has also been an important part of our toolkit for our QC and developability studies.
SEC-MALS with the miniDAWN has been critical for determination of the molecular weight and polydispersity of our final material.”