Frank Stappenbeck

Frank Stappenbeck is the Director of Chemistry at MAX BioPharma. Since joining the company in 2011, he has spent nearly two decades working with drug discovery teams in the pharmaceutical industry, efforts that have produced several clinical drug candidates (Elan Pharmaceuticals, ICOS Corporation, SGX-Pharmaceuticals, and Fate Therapeutics). He has worked on drug chemistry problems in the areas of oncology, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative disease, and regenerative medicine. His experience includes structure-based design, fragment-based drug discovery, and drug screening based on phenotypic assays. Dr. Stappenbeck first became interested in chemistry as an undergraduate student at the University of Göttingen in Germany. After gaining a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry working with Prof. James D. White at Oregon State University, he completed his postdoctoral training with Prof. Larry E. Overman at UC Irvine. Informed and encouraged by his training, Dr. Stappenbeck has developed an ongoing interest in the chemistry and pharmacological properties of naturally occurring substances, such as alkaloids and sterols, as worthwhile starting points in drug discovery research.