Page 14 - Heroes of Chemistry Program Booklet

ACS honors AbbVie for VENCLEXTA®/VENCLYXTO® (venetoclax), a first-in-class medicine that selectively
binds/inhibits the B-cell lymphoma-2 (BCL-2) protein, and is approved for certain blood cancer treatments.

Discovered by AbbVie scientists, it is being developed by AbbVie and Roche and jointly commercialized
by Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, in the U.S. and by AbbVie outside of the U.S.

Milan Bruncko
Milan Bruncko is a Senior Principal Research Scientist at AbbVie. He received his Ph.D. in
Chemistry from UIC under the supervision of Professor David Crich. Milan’s main research focus
area was on the discovery of Bcl-2 family inhibitors. Currently, his interests are in the field of
antibody drug conjugates.

Vincent Chan
Vincent Chan is currently a Principal Scientist at Merck Research Laboratories. He received a
Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley with Professors Robert Bergman and Dean Toste.
From 2010–2018 he was in the AbbVie Process Chemistry group where he was a key contributor
on the venetoclax team.

Alan Christesen
Alan Christesen is a Senior Scientist at AbbVie after receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from
Northern Illinois University. Since 2001, Alan has been working as a Process Chemist at AbbVie
(formerly Abbott Labs.), advancing new molecular entities through early and late phases of
development and contributing to two commercial launches.

Hong Ding
Hong Ding is an Associate Director in Regulatory Affairs at AbbVie. She received her M.S.
in Organic Chemistry from Beijing University, China. Hong’s research was focused on the
discovery of Bcl-2 family inhibitors. Currently Hong supports AbbVie global clinical studies
in oncology and immunology therapeutical areas.

14 #HeroesofChemistry | 2021 Recipients