MATTHIAS FRECH
Head of Molecular Interaction & Biophysics, Merck

“Driving Forward Drug Discovery with Binding Kinetics”
The role of drug binding kinetics for drug molecule selection and development.

Host: Maria João Romão, UCIBIO

Short Bio

Dr. Matthias Frech is currently the Head of the Department for Molecular Interaction and Biophysics (MIB) at Merck. The group is conducting molecular interaction studies and protein crystallographic work, to get insight into the mode of action with a variety of biophysical methods. The current data packages of thermodynamic signatures, interaction kinetics and protein structure supports the drug discovery process at Merck.

Before, Dr. Matthias Frech was responsible for a protein chemistry group working with different biophysical interaction methods combined with the protein purification and analysis for structural studies and high throughput screening. He had a post doctoral position at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, part of the Novartis Research organisation, focusing on protein kinases and their biochemical characterization. As EMBO fellow, Dr. Matthias Frech worked in the technology park of Sophia Antipolis nearby Nice/ France, on nucleotide exchange factors and adaptor proteins in the p21ras signalling pathway. He carried out his PhD in the department of Biophysics at the Max Plank Institute in Heidelberg focusing on structure and molecular interaction studies of small p21ras like proteins.