The rockefeller university

Scientists, not simply service specialists

The Fisher Drug Discovery Resource Center is staffed by a small, highly collaborative team of scientists with complementary scientific backgrounds and broad technical expertise.

Our team members are cross-trained across the Center’s major technologies and workflows, allowing them to work independently with investigators and to support projects as they progress from assay development through screening, hit confirmation, and biological characterization.

Rather than organizing our work around individual instruments or narrowly defined technical specialties, we emphasize collaboration and shared expertise. Team members coordinate with one another as projects evolve, bringing the appropriate combination of biological, biochemical, analytical, and screening expertise to each problem.

Our goal is to provide investigators with a scientific partner—not simply access to an instrument or a standardized service.

J. Fraser Glickman, Ph.D.

Director, Fisher Drug Discovery Resource Center

Fraser Glickman is Director of the Fisher Drug Discovery Resource Center at Rockefeller University, where he leads a multidisciplinary team supporting assay development, high-throughput screening, biophysical characterization, and early-stage therapeutic discovery.

His career has spanned academic research, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical drug discovery, with experience in assay development, high-throughput screening, automation, biophysical methods, chemical biology, and the development of experimental strategies for identifying and characterizing small-molecule leads.

At the DDRC, Fraser works directly with investigators to translate biological questions into practical drug discovery strategies. His interests include assay development and optimization, screening strategy, hit identification and prioritization, biophysical characterization, chemical diversity, and the integration of experimental and computational approaches to drug discovery.

He is particularly interested in the decisions that connect the different stages of a discovery program—choosing an appropriate assay, translating research assays into robust screening formats, interpreting large hit lists, validating computational or biological hypotheses, and determining when chemical matter is sufficiently well characterized to justify medicinal chemistry.

Areas of Expertise

• Drug discovery strategy
• Assay development and optimization
• High-throughput screening
• Biophysical characterization
• Screening library design and chemical diversity
• Hit identification and prioritization
• Chemical biology
• Automation and screening technologies
• Cheminformatics and data analysis
• Translational drug discovery

Contact: fglickman@rockefeller.edu

Francesca Curelli, Ph.D.

Senior Research Support Specialist

Francesca Curreli is a virologist and molecular biologist with extensive experience in infectious disease research, cell biology, molecular biology, immunology, and small-molecule drug discovery. Her research career has included the development and characterization of inhibitors targeting HIV and other viral pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, and MERS-CoV.

Francesca has extensive experience designing and executing biological assays to evaluate potential therapeutic compounds. Her work has included ELISA, flow cytometry, RT-PCR, immunoblotting, neutralization and toxicity assays, drug-resistance studies, drug-combination studies, cloning and mutagenesis, and cellular and molecular approaches to understanding antiviral mechanisms. She has also worked extensively with viruses and pseudoviruses, primary human cells, and cell-based infection models.

Her experience in drug discovery extends from assay development and biological characterization through identification and evaluation of novel lead compounds. She has also contributed to the development of new inventions and patent applications and has extensive experience training and supervising scientists and laboratory personnel.

At the DDRC, Francesca brings this broad infectious-disease and drug-discovery experience to collaborative projects, working across assay development, screening, cell-based studies, and characterization of potential therapeutic compounds.

Areas of Expertise

• Infectious disease and antiviral drug discovery
• Cell-based assay development
• Molecular biology
• Virology and pseudovirus systems
• Immunology
• ELISA and immunoblotting
• Flow cytometry
• Primary cell culture
• Drug resistance and combination studies
• Compound characterization

Contact: fcurreli@rockefeller.edu

Loreto Carvallo-Torres, Ph.D.

Research Support Specialist

Loreto Carvallo-Torres is a molecular and cell biologist with extensive experience in infectious disease, immunology, neuroscience, virology, biochemistry, and gene regulation. She has led and supported multidisciplinary research projects involving HIV, NeuroAIDS, inflammatory signaling, and cellular responses to pharmacological interventions.

Her research experience includes developing and optimizing cell-based assays to measure changes in gene and protein expression, as well as extensive work with molecular biology, primary cells, animal models, and disease-related signaling pathways. Her technical background includes RT-qPCR, Western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation, ELISA, ChIP assays, cloning, mutagenesis, viral replication, and cell culture.

Loreto also has extensive experience working collaboratively across disciplines and training other scientists in laboratory techniques. Her research has included both in vitro and in vivo approaches, providing a broad perspective on how biological mechanisms can be translated into experimental assays suitable for drug discovery.

At the DDRC, Loreto contributes to assay development, biological characterization, and the implementation of experimental workflows for drug discovery projects. Her broad molecular and cell biology background allows her to work across multiple assay formats and to collaborate with investigators as projects move from biological questions toward screening and follow-up studies.

Areas of Expertise

• Molecular and cell biology
• Assay development and optimization
• Infectious disease and virology
• Immunology and cellular signaling
• ELISA and Western blotting
• RT-qPCR and gene expression analysis
• Primary cell culture
• Cell-based assays
• Viral systems
• Experimental design and biological characterization

Contact: lcarvallo@rockefeller.edu

Chloe Larson

Research Support Specialist

Chloe Larson is a neuroscientist with research experience spanning neurodegenerative disease, pharmacology, cell biology, and preclinical models of neurological disease. She graduated magna cum laude with honors in Neuroscience from Skidmore College and subsequently conducted research at Rockefeller University investigating glutamatergic modulation and potential therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer’s disease.

Her research experience includes developing an in vitro assay to evaluate pharmacological compounds affecting glutamate uptake, as well as extensive work with transgenic mouse models and behavioral measures of neurological function. Her laboratory experience includes mammalian cell culture, primary cell isolation, transfection, ELISA, Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, fluorescence microscopy, protein and nucleic-acid extraction, synaptosome isolation, and quantitative image analysis.

Chloe’s background provides the DDRC team with experience at the interface of neuroscience, pharmacology, cell biology, and experimental assay development. Her experience working with both cellular and animal models provides an important perspective when translating biological questions into practical experimental assays and evaluating the biological consequences of potential therapeutic compounds.

At the DDRC, Chloe works as part of the Center’s cross-trained scientific team, contributing to assay development, screening workflows, data analysis, and biological characterization.

Areas of Expertise

• Neuroscience
• Neurodegenerative disease
• Pharmacological assay development
• Cell-based assays
• Mammalian cell culture
• ELISA and Western blotting
• Immunohistochemistry and fluorescence microscopy
• Quantitative image analysis
• Preclinical models
• Experimental data analysis

Contact: clarson@rockefeller.edu

A Collaborative Scientific Team

The breadth of expertise within the DDRC is intentional.

Drug discovery projects rarely fit neatly into a single scientific discipline. A project may begin with a biological observation, require development of a biochemical or cell-based assay, progress to high-throughput screening, and then require analytical chemistry, biophysical characterization, or additional cellular experiments to determine whether an apparent hit represents meaningful chemical biology.

Our cross-trained team allows these transitions to occur within a collaborative environment. Although each scientist brings a distinct scientific background and particular areas of expertise, team members routinely work across technologies and coordinate with one another as projects evolve.

When you work with the DDRC, you are working with the team—not simply with an instrument or an individual technique.