Josef Vagner, PhD, is an Associate Research Professor at the University of BIO5 Research Institute and the Director of the Ligand Discovery Laboratory. Dr. Vagner is expert in the field of drug discovery and development, and he is focused on the design, synthesis, purification, characterization and screening of compound arrays.He has published over 70 original research papers and 31 patents. He is a frequent presenter at national and international meetings American Chemical Society and Peptide Societies)Dr. Vagner designed and developed of compounds for in vivo pharmacologic applications and translation programs. He has over 25 years experience in synthesis and structural analysis of de novo ligands for various biological targets, including a recent focus on ligands targeting GPCRs and multivalent ligands. These experiences include 10 years of work in the pharmaceutical industry Sanofi/ Selectide, Novo Nordisk, Discovery Partner International) where he specialized in combinatorial chemistry and array synthesis of small molecules. During his time in industry, he supervised teams of workers who successfully accomplished the synthesis of more than ten large libraries with 10,000 compounds each)