Christian is the President, CSO, and Founder of ThirdLaw Molecular, focusing on the development of Spiroligomer™ molecules for drug and diagnostic innovation. He also serves as a Chemistry Professor at Temple University. An acclaimed AMBER software developer, Christian has been pivotal in advancing biomolecular simulations for over 30 years worldwide. He notably synthesized the first artificial protein, 4HB1, as a graduate student and co-invented “stapled peptides” during his post-doctoral research. With two decades dedicated to Spiroligomer™ molecules, he has significantly scaled up their production with the Department of Defense and Energy’s backing. Through ThirdLaw Molecular, Christian aims to revolutionize therapeutics and diagnostics with Spiroligomer™ technology.

JD is the Principal Scientist at ThirdLaw Molecular, and has been with the company since its founding in 2020. He has worked on Spiroligomer™ molecules for over a decade. JD received his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Temple University in 2016, where he authored numerous papers with Christian Schafmeister on the development of Spiroligomer™ molecules and their chemistries. He did his postdoctoral work with Mark Sellmyer in the Department of Radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, working on chemical biology and radiochemistry. During this time, he also pursued a course in translational research, receiving a certificate from the UPenn Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.

David is the President & CEO of BiologicsMD, an early-stage drug development company, and a Founding Partner for Bowman’s Tower Venture Partners, a venture capital group founded in 2022 to assist entrepreneur leaders in advancing their early-stage life-science companies. Previous roles include Co-CEO & Board Director of OrthogenRx, Inc. (sold to Avanos in 2022), Chief Business Officer of Novira Therapeutics, Inc. (sold to J&J in 2015), Senior Vice President and Business Unit Head of the Surgical Products Division at King Pharmaceuticals (now Pfizer), Vice President of Global Marketing & Medical Affairs at Aventis Pharma (now Sanofi), and other commercial positions at Genentech, Merck and Abbott Labs. David has been an active private investor and angel investor since 2009 and was previously a member of the Mid-Atlantic Angel Group Fund II and the Delaware Crossing Investor Group.

Dr. Barry Arkles has a record of accomplishment in applied materials science, surface chemistry and biotechnology both from the innovation and managerial perspective that can be noted in contributions to a variety of applications including thermoplastic composites, the NASA Space Shuttle, Contact Lenses, Interlayer Dielectrics and Metallization used in integrated semiconductor devices, and Gene Chips for DNA array analysis. Today the companies that he founded or cofounded generate nearly $1,000,000,000 in annual revenue: LNP Engineering Thermoplastics, Petrarch Systems Inc., and Gelest Inc, now part of SABIC Basic Industries, Evonik, and Mitsubishi Chemical, Inc, respectively. He has published over 150 technical articles and has been granted over 100 patents. He has been elected to the National Academy of Engineers and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has received numerous awards including the John Scott Medal, ACS Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry, the R&D 100 Award for contributions to semiconductors.

Joe has been advising ThirdLaw Molecular since 2024. He is a consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, acting as interim head of chemistry for several small startup companies, following his role as Senior Vice President of Early Success Sharing Partnerships at WuXi AppTec Limited, and a 30 year career at Merck Research Laboratories. During his time at Merck, he and his teams made major contributions to several approved drugs including the HIV protease inhibitor CRIXIVAN™ (indinavir sulfate); the HIV integrase inhibitor ISENTRESS® (raltegravir); the HCV protease inhibitor VANIHEP® (vaniprevir), the combination product ZEPATIER® (a combination of the second generation HCV protease inhibitor grazoprevir and the NS5A protein inhibitor elbasvir and the recently approved second generation HIV NNRTI inhibitor PIFELTRO® (doravirine). Joe has over 100 publications and patents and is the holder of many awards including a Merck Directors Award (1998); PhRMA Discoverers Award (1999); Intellectual Property Owners “National Inventor of the year Award” (1997); European Inventor of the Year (non-EU nation) (2007); ACS “Award for Creative Invention” (1999); and was a named a Merck Research Laboratories Presidential Fellow in 2008. He was named to the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame (Aug. 2012) and was also named a “Hero of Chemistry” (along with the research team) for his role in the discovery and development of the HIV integrase inhibitor Isentress(TM). Dr. Vacca earned his BS in Chemistry in 1977 from St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, and obtained his PhD degree in Organic Chemistry under Professor Peter T. Lansbury Sr. at the State University of New York at Buffalo (New York).

DJ joined the biology group at Thirdlaw Molecular in 2022. He obtained his PhD from the University of Georgia, where his thesis focused on sugar structures on the outside of mammalian cells. After completing his PhD, he worked as a lead scientist at Eurofins, conducting analytical studies on late-stage drugs. DJ then moved to Immunome (Exton, PA), where he worked in the high-throughput screening group. At Thirdlaw Molecular, DJ conducts screening of the Spiroligomer™ libraries and develops diagnostics using novel-binding Spiroligomer™ molecules.

Sarah joined Thirdlaw Molecular in 2022 bringing with over 30 years of US and global commercial leadership experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. She has a proven track record of developing and implementing commercial strategy for early-stage assets, through to launching and growing robust, multi-million to multi-billion-dollar brands. Sarah operates her own commercial consulting business and currently acts as Chief Commercial Officer for Neumentum, a development-stage company dedicated to developing and commercializing non-opioid pain treatments, is a business advisor to BiologicsMD, a preclinical therapeutic company developing highly-targeted treatments for hair loss and bone disorders, and Partner of Bowman’s Tower Venture Partners. Sarah’s previous roles include Vice President, Sales and Marketing, for the specialty dermatology company, PharmaDerm (sold to Sandoz), Sr. Vice President of Marketing for the specialty pharma company, King (sold to Pfizer), and Business Team Leader for the world’s leading low molecular weight heparin, Lovenox, at Aventis (now Sanofi). Sarah graduated with a BS in Chemistry and Pharmacology from Sheffield University in the UK.

Julia joined ThirdLaw Molecular as a Chemist in 2022. She received her BS in Chemistry in 2016 from Saint Joseph’s University. While at SJU, Julia worked with Dr. Jose Cerda studying thermodynamics of fluoride binding in Heme proteins. In 2018 she received her MS from Villanova University where her research focused on synthetic organometallic chemistry and studies in structure-function relationships in metallo-phosphine complexes, working with Dr. Scott Kassel. At ThirdLaw, Julia primarily works to synthesize the functionalized building blocks that are used in synthesis of Spiroligomers™ molecules.

Tom is a Senior Scientist at ThirdLaw Molecular, joining the company in 2020. He has be involved with the synthesis and characterization of diagnostic and therapeutic properties of Spiroligomer™ molecules at ThirdLaw. Tom received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. Under the supervision of Prof. Marisa Kozlowski, he studied method development and mechanistic investigation of catalytic reactions, which resulted in numerous publications.

Hera has been with ThirdLaw Molecular since its founding in 2020. With over a decade of experience in research administration, Hera has been instrumental in securing multiple millions of dollars in funding for the Company’s research and development projects. Hera earned her BA from Ursinus College and a JD from Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Jesse graduated from the University of Vermont in 2012 with a BS in Chemistry and minors in Mathematics and Philosophy, after which he worked with APIs at Dow Water and Process Solutions. Jesse went on to get his masters in Chemistry at Villanova University with Dr. Jared Paul, researching hydrogen gas production for alternative fuels via electro- and photo-catalytic methods with ruthenium based catalysts. After completing his masters, he joined Dr. Christian Schafmeister’s group at Temple University as a PhD. student, but left early to join ThirdLaw Molecular to assist in manifesting the power of Spiroligomer™ molecules to solve problems in diagnostics and therapeutics.

After graduating from Washington State University with a BS in Computational Neuroscience in 2016, Alex worked with Dr. Schafmeister and the University of Bordeaux’s Dr. Robert Strandh on compiler development before joining ThirdLaw Molecular in 2022. Alex has worked in scientific programming since his undergraduate years, and has coauthored several papers on computational biology and software engineering.