Philip Chamberlain

Phil is Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Neomorph. He obtained his BA and D.Phil. degrees from the University of Oxford before traveling to the U.S. to work at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF). At GNF Phil supported and led projects in serious respiratory and inflammatory disease and solved multiple novel structures. Phil joined Celgene, San Diego in 2007 and built and led the Structural and Chemical Biology department, most recently as Executive Director, Protein Homeostasis and Structural Biology. Phil was responsible for several fundamental scientific breakthroughs on the mechanism of action of thalidomide analogs, including the structural basis for cereblon binding and neosubstrate recruitment, the definition of the neosubstrate ‘structural degron’, and a plausible molecular explanation for the thalidomide teratogenicity disaster of the twentieth century. Based on these discoveries, Phil led the construction of the cereblon modulator platform at Celgene, the pioneering drug discovery effort in the ‘molecular glue’ field generating a portfolio of projects. Phil has published work on targeted protein degradation in journals including Nature, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology and Nature Chemical Biology. Phil was the recipient of the John W. Jackson leadership award, the most prestigious achievement award at Celgene.