Laszlo Urban Editor & Author

Jinghai James Xu, Ph.D. is currently Senior Director of Knowledge Discovery and Knowledge Management at Merck Research Laboratory, New Jersey, where he guides strategic directions of integrating external and internal knowledge to enhance the probability of success of pharmaceutical research and development. Before joining Merck he held positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer, first at its Groton Laboratories, then at its Cambridge-based Systems Biology group, Research Technology Center. While at Pfizer, he led research directions in predictive toxicology, in vitro ADMET assay development and implementation, in vitro in vivo correlations, high content screening, automated image analysis, systems biology and systems toxicology. Prior to Pfizer, he worked at the advanced technology group at Curagen Corp. Dr Xu received his Ph.D. in Toxicology under the guidance of Professor Peter C. Dedon at MIT (in Cambridge, MA, USA). He has been honored with numerous awards including the Pfizer Central Research Achievement Award. He has published many book chapters, patent applications and scientific papers. He also speaks frequently at professional conferences about the value of implementing predictive technologies for drug efficacy and safety early in the drug R and D process. He serves both as an author and editor for scientific publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Wiley and Sons, and Bentham Science. Dr Laszlo Urban is current Executive Director and Global Head of Preclinical Safety Profiling at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr Urban has been actively involved in organizations such as the European Neuropeptide Club, the Society for Biomolecular Sciences and the International Association for the Study of Pain. His most recent published works include Hit and Lead Profiling (2009).