Gaochao Tian

Gaochao joined Kojin in June 2021 as the Head of Enzymology. Gaochao is supporting drug discovery efforts at all stages with focus on developing/delivering biochemical assays for SAR progression and hit finding as well as detailed mechanistic characterization of compound-target interactions. He is devising and executing strategies for hit finding and lead optimization efforts. Gaochao comes to Kojin after working at Janssen Pharmaceuticals for 5 years where he was an enzymology group leader contributing to many classes of enzyme targets across multiple therapeutic areas including Oncology. Gaochao also had a combined 20-years of early drug discovery experience at AstraZeneca and GSK where he worked on many classes of enzymes, receptors and transporters providing key scientific data to enable milestone transitions from hit generation through clinical candidate nomination. Throughout his industry career, he contributed to discovery of multiple clinical candidates and a marketed drug Avodart, a 5α-reductase inhibitor. Prior to his industry career, Gaochao received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry in Professor Ming-Daw Tsai’s laboratory from the Ohio State University and completed an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship in Professor Judith Klinman’s laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. Gaochao is an author for 40 peer reviewed publications.