Juan Gutierrez

Juan was born in Bogota, Colombia, but grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He studied biology and chemistry in the U; first at St. Louis University; then at Purdue University where he got his Ph.D. studying bacterial osmoregulation and at the University of Florida where he did postdoctoral research on acidurance in oral Streptococci.

His first job was with Millennium Pharmaceuticals/Takeda where he worked on anti-infectives and oncology drug discovery focused on the ubiquitin proteosome system. He then worked at the Broad Institute’s Center for the Discovery of Therapeutics on a phenotypic discovery project for a rare kidney disease caused by proteotoxic stress. This work resulted in the discovery of BRD4780, a novel small molecule TMED9 inhibitor capable of reversing proteotoxicity of mutant secreted proteins inducing ER stress.

More recently, he worked at two biotechs- Forma Therapeutics and Valo Health- developing cellular assays with high translational potential. He has an interest in dysregulated stress biology as it relates to diseases, particularly those impacting protein homeostasis. He believes phenotypic drug discovery together with chemical biology can uncover novel therapeutic opportunities especially as it relates to condensate biology.