Tom Onofrey

Consultant

  • Chemistry Method Optimization and Development, LC-MS/MS, Small Molecules and Drugs

Tom has his PhD from Dartmouth, where his research focused on the design and synthesis of drugs to decrease the production of biosynthetic cholesterol.  At the time, this was a hot topic, and he was "competing" with a few pharmaceutical companies.  He was able to develop some quite effective drugs, but ultimately, inhibition of the targeted enzyme resulted in toxic side effects.

Tom had a post-doctoral position in studying organic mechanisms at UC Irvine.

He then worked at a start-up biotech company, Nanogen, where his responsibilities included developing a covalent attachment of DNA onto a polymeric surface that covered a microelectronic array. This work resulted in seven patents and publications, and it was very successful.

Tom spent two years with Millipore, during which time he led projects using membranes for absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) applications. These applications included numerous 96-well membrane plates to determine drug characteristics in these categories very quickly.

At MAnnkind corporation, Tom was responsible for the analytical chemistry group, which involved all work with HPLC, HPLC MS, and other instrumentation. Following at Consolidated Laboratory Services, Tom was asked to develop and expand the HIV drug conformational analysis using LC-MS/MS.  The laboratory was testing for eight compounds.  Within 2 years, Tom developed assays for 23 of 24 HIV drugs.  Within another year, he developed additional assays for steroids, vitamins, and antidepressants, all with only 2 instruments and a successful development turnaround time of 4 days.

Tom was then approached and asked to develop conformational testing of drugs of abuse for another lab. Quickly, he setup LC-MS/MS to quantitatively determine drug levels for 70 drugs in a single run, which took eight minutes.  Testing procedures complied with ISO regulations and passed an audit.

Some interesting highlights:

  • I've given a lecture or seminar on four continents.

  • I "talked shop" with a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.

  • Presented at numerous conferences, including a conference where I had authored eight posters on eight different topics.

  • 7 patents and approximately 40 publications.

  • While meetings are of course valuable, I prefer getting in the lab and putting plans into action.