Dr. Smith and Dr. Mahajan have been collaborating since 2018 on drug development for retinal disease. Dr. Smith joined Stanford ChEM-H in May 2013 as the Head of the Medicinal Chemistry Knowledge Center. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology, where his research focused on the application of Lewis acid catalyzed hetero Diels-Alder reactions to the synthesis of novel disaccharide structures. In 2000, Dr. Smith joined the research laboratory of Prof. David Crich at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Here his research focused on the generation of new reagents for the synthesis of beta-mannosides from thioglycosides. From 2002 to 2013, Dr. Smith worked as a medicinal chemist in Roche’s research facilities both in Palo Alto, CA and then Nutley, NJ, where he specialized in antiviral research. Smith and Mahajan co-mentor students and medicinal chemistry postdoctoral fellows developing small-molecule drugs for a variety of eye disease proteins.