Todd Zankel, Ph.D. | Source | CSO, Co-founder at Mercaptor Discoveries

Dr. Zankel co-founded and seed-funded Mercaptor Discoveries in 2016.  He is also the company’s chief science officer (CSO). Dr. Zankel began his career in drug development as the fourth employee of BioMarin Pharmaceutical in 1997, completing his tenure there as Senior Director of Research in 2005.  He then co-founded Raptor Pharmaceuticals in 2006, acting as CSO and head of discovery research until 2016, when Raptor was acquired. A direct descendant of the discovery group at Raptor, Mercaptor is focused on proprietary molecules conceived and developed to treat neuronal injury and degeneration.  As an academic, Dr. Zankel was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at both the Plant Gene Expression Center in Berkeley, California, and the Chemistry Department of the ETH, Zürich, Switzerland. The author of a number of scientific publications and patents, Todd earned a B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University, New York.