Automated Cell Names Lex M. Cowsert, Ph.D. As Chief Scientific Officer; Lex M. Cowsert to Lead Science & Technology Team At Automated Cell, a Rapidly Growing Drug Discovery Company.

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

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Automated Cell, Inc. announced today that it has appointed Lex M. Cowsert, Ph.D. as its Chief Scientific Officer.

Dr. Cowsert will lead Automated Cell's interdisciplinary drug discovery research and development organization that includes disease phenotype quantification, molecular biology, cell biology and bioinformatics, all aimed at protein target prioritization and validation and lead compound optimization programs in oncology and immune disease.

"Automated Cell is in a unique position to exploit the tremendous opportunities present at the intersection of biology and information technology," commented Dr. Cowsert. "Automated Cell has assembled an exceptional scientific team and scientific advisory board to develop a phenotype driven drug discovery engine to accelerate and to greatly improve target prioritization and validation across an extraordinarily in-depth biological profile unmatched in genomics and proteomics derived discovery programs."

Dr. Cowsert has 13 years of industrial experience in biotechnology and joins Automated Cell from Vistagen, where he was Vice President of Functional Genomics, and before then, Isis Pharmaceuticals, where he held a number of scientific management positions and was the eighth employee. During his 11 years at Isis, Dr. Cowsert was instrumental in the development and implementation of Isis' Rapid Throughput Screening (RTS) technology for active lead discovery and functional genomics and executed RTS internally and with collaborators. The RTS program grew into the GeneTrove division at Isis. Before that, Dr. Cowsert lead discovery and preclinical studies on various Isis lead molecules. Dr. Cowsert has over 115 issued U.S. patents.

"We are thrilled to have a world-class drug discovery scientist like Dr. Cowsert join our team," said Raymond K. Houck, Automated Cell' President and CEO. "Lex has a track record of building interdisciplinary scientific teams and developing breakthrough drug discovery programs. I look forward to working with Lex to validating protein targets and bringing them and their lead compounds to the IND stage using our disease phenotype platform, whether for our collaborators or for ourselves."

Automated Cell identifies proteins significant in human diseases to focus and shorten drug development efforts. Our disease phenotype drug discovery engine characterizes, prioritizes and validates protein targets opportunities and allows phenotypical optimization of lead molecules for both collaborators and internal drug discovery efforts in oncology and immune disease.