Peptilogics Promotes Nicholas Nystrom, Ph.D., to Chief Technology Officer

PITTSBURGH, PA, January 24, 2021 – Peptilogics, a biotech company that designs peptide therapeutics, today announced that it has promoted Nicholas Nystrom, Ph.D., formerly SVP and Head of Computation and Data, to Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Dr. Nystrom will lead technology strategy, as well as the implementation and advancement of Peptilogics’ computational peptide design platform that unites novel artificial intelligence technology and supercomputing with biological and pharmaceutical expertise to optimize peptide therapeutics.

The platform was built by Peptilogics to overcome historical challenges of peptide drug R&D, enable rapid design and develop treatments. In advancing the computational platform, Dr. Nystrom will oversee in silico peptide drug design across diverse targets, including the discovery programs in Peptilogics’ pipeline.

“Over the last 100 years, the biopharmaceutical industry has made incredible advancements to bring life-changing medicines to patients. Improving this trajectory will require applying technology tools like AI and machine learning to help unravel biological complexity,” said Jonathan Steckbeck, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Peptilogics. “Our design platform is at the forefront of this convergence of technology and biology, due to the contributions of our highly capable, inter-disciplinary computational team led by Nick. Prior to joining us, Nick spent his career designing and building first-in-world systems that pushed the boundaries of what was possible with AI and high-performance computing. We are fortunate to have him on the team.”

“Technology innovation is essential to enable the rapid design of best-in-class peptide drugs to treat diseases with large unmet medical needs,” said Dr. Nystrom. “Our platform demonstrates great promise to accelerate the design of safe, effective peptide therapeutics by intelligently navigating complex chemical and biological spaces. I look forward to continuing to oversee its development and the many doors it may open to the largely untapped diversity of potential peptide therapeutics.”

Dr. Nystrom joined Peptilogics in 2021 following nearly 30 years at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC). There he developed a complete, sustainable high-performance computing (HPC), AI and data ecosystem, supporting research in medicine, artificial intelligence, biology, chemistry, physics, economics, other physical and social sciences, and engineering in collaboration with federal sponsors including the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DoD). While at PSC, he architected and served as Principal Investigator and Project Director for supercomputers that benefitted the international research community, most recently including Bridges, which pioneered the convergence of HPC, AI and Bridges-2. He was also Principal Investigator for the NIH-sponsored Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP), creating data and computational hardware and software infrastructure for developing a map of all tissues of the human body at single-cell resolution using genomic, proteomic and imaging data. In 2020, Dr. Nystrom was closely involved in the White House COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, through which Bridges was made available to support urgent research on the emerging virus. Dr. Nystrom earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.

About Peptilogics
Peptilogics engineers peptide therapeutics to radically improve the treatment landscape for patients with life-threatening diseases. Through biological and pharmaceutical expertise, novel artificial intelligence algorithms, and purpose-built super-computing, Peptilogics is advancing an extensive therapeutic pipeline and accelerating discovery efforts at a pace and scale that was previously impossible. Peptilogics is backed by visionary investors in life science and technology including Peter Thiel, Presight Capital, CARB-X, and Founders Fund. For more information about Peptilogics, visit www.peptilogics.com or follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Liz Boten
Liz.Boten@canalecomm.com

Peptilogics Contact:
Jodie Gillon
SVP Corporate Affairs & Patient Advocacy
Jodie.Gillon@peptilogics.com