Jim Rinker Professional Bio
This page was last
updated on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 12:57:35 PM
Over the
past twenty-three years, I have been working as a synthetic organic chemist and
cheminformatics specialist in R&D in the pharmaceutical industry in both a
small company setting as well as big pharma. This experience has allowed me to
gain an intimate working knowledge of the entire drug discovery process from
initial library hit screening to clinical candidate declaration and all phases
of drug discovery in between as well as a vast knowledge of synthetic and
analytical techniques for the synthesis and purification of organic compounds on
all scales.
I am a hard working,
positive, and innovative individual with a “can do” attitude that will
flourish in a challenging research environment aimed at solving complex
scientific problems. I have worked on many successful projects that have posed
significant scientific obstacles in making a good idea on paper work in reality.
These obstacles have included IP (patent), synthetic, ADME, and potency issues
that have required innovative solutions to solve these complex problems.
My most recent
position was held at Johnson & Johnson as a Scientist (Ph.D.) level
synthetic organic chemist on a target based project in the therapeutic area of
pain. My responsibilities included working independently within a
multidisciplinary team setting on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel
molecular entities directed at a pain target. My responsibilities within this
team was to evaluate screening hits, prioritize them based on activity, IP
space, and synthetic feasibility, then through an iterative process design and
synthesize new organic molecules that would be highly active against the desired
target.
In
addition to my skills in research, I spent several years working as a
chemo-informatics specialist. In this position, I acted as a liaison between the
database and computational chemistry groups and the high throughput chemistry
group. I was responsible for building and maintaining oracle databases and
building front-end applications to retrieve, process, store, and manage data
generated by our high throughput chemistry group. I also have extensive on line
literature and patent searching skills using STN Express. I also have extensive
experience writing VB macros in Excel spreadsheets to manage and process
scientific data generated in the lab.
Concerning the duties
outlined in the job description posted and my past experience, it was my
responsibility once given a research assignment to architect a research plan for
that project which included a thorough literature search of all work done in
that area using various on-line services like chemical abstracts to search both
the scientific literature as well as patents. Once a plan was in place, it was
my responsibility to design the synthetic pathway, synthesize, purify,
characterize, and register all new molecules. In addition it was my
responsibility to manage my laboratory space that included purchasing of
reagents, maintaining lab equipment, and ensuring the lab complied with all
safety requirements.