Gilbert M. Rishton PhD, Founder and Director, has led drug discovery programs in pharma for over 15 years. During his years at Amgen, he was the founding medicinal chemist at the Thousand Oaks site. Dr. Rishton was responsible for much of the program initiation and group building for the Amgen Small Molecule Drug Discovery Group, which has grown to become one of the most formidable in the pharmaceutical industry. He has managed drug discovery programs in inflammation, oncology, and central nervous system disease.
Dr. Rishton has a passionate interest in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery and led the medicinal chemistry program for Amgen’s Secretase Team. This effort was among the first to produce small molecule secretase inhibitors as potential therapeutic agents for Alzheimer’s disease. He was the chemistry manager for Amgen’s Sensipar development program, serving on both the clinical research project team and the preclinical science team for 7 years. This drug development program spanned several phases from preclinical development, to manufacturing and then human clinical trials. This resulted in the commercial launch of Amgen’s first orally administered small molecule product, Sensipar, a treatment for hypercalcemia and loss of bone density due to hyperparathyroidism (HPT). Dr. Rishton retired from Amgen to continue his efforts toward Alzheimer’s drug discovery as founder and director of the nonprofit Channel Islands Alzheimer’s Institute.
2008 Alzheimer's Research Scholarship awardees Justin Hilf and Andrew Yaeger.
2007 Alzheimer's Research Scholarship awardees Andrew Merithew and Emily Mazzucchi.
Student assistants Justin Hilf and Andrew Yaeger present their drug discovery work at the 2008 ACS Western Regional Meeting in Las Vegas.
Wren Saito and Crystallyn Kaplan work up a chemical conditioning reaction.
Student scientist Krystal Drake performs a vacuum filtration following a chemical conditioning reaction.
Interns Jennifer Pan and Ben Steele prepare a silica gel column for chromatographic fractionation of a conditioned extract.
Interns Jennifer Pan and Ben Steele observe the resolution of fractions while performing column chromatography.
Interns Jennifer Pan and Ben Steele fractionate a conditioned extract using column chromatography.
Intern Wren Saito performs vacuum filtration.
Graduate student Cody Fullenwider collects fractions from a conditioned extraction.
Intern Crystallyn Kaplan records data in her laboratory notebook.
Interns Crystallyn Kaplan and Wren Saito concentrate a solution following fractionation of a conditioned extract by column chromatography.
Graduate student Chris Cornett fractionates a conditioned extract using a silica gel chromatography column.
Kristin Beierle records new data during a reconditioned extract process.
Student researcher Cody Fullenwider, reviewing data on the secretase drug discovery project.
Student researcher, Kristin Beierle, purifying an active compound.
Kristin Beierle and Cody Fullenwider oversee a conditioned extraction process.
Co-authors Cody Fullenwider and Kristine Beierle and their poster "Chemically Conditioned Extracts of Ginger Oil: Leadlike Alkaloidal Compounds from Natural Extracts via Reductive Amination".
New student assistants for Summer 2006. Front row (l to r); Hiromi Arai, Crystallyn Kapan, and Wren Saito. Back row (l to r); Chriss Cornett, Jennifer Pan, Krystal Drake, and Alzheimer's Institute Director Gilbert Rishton PhD.
Cody Fullenwider inspects TLC data for the fractionation of conditioned extracts.
Channel Islands Alzheimer's Institute secretase team: student researcher Hiromi Arai, graduate student researcher Zoya Kai, student researcher Cody Fullenwider, Founder and Director Dr. Gilbert Rishton.
Student researcher Hiromi Arai performing the chemical conditioning of ginger oil.
Zoya Kai and Hiromi Arai studying new drug leads from the conditioned extracts of ginger oil.
Zoya Kai, Alzheimer's Institute graduate student researcher.
Hiromi Arai, Alzheimer's Institute undergraduate student researcher.
Zoya Kai, Dr. Rishton, and Hiromi Arai, working together on the ginger oil project.
