Dr. Tom Pfeifer is the head of screening at the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD, Canada's national drug development and commercialization engine) where he leads a team in the development and implementation of assays (tests) in an automated screening environment. Dr. Pfeifer is also the lead of CDRD's Neuroscience Task Force, which evaluates external projects for their potential to becoming translated to the pre-clinical proof-of-concept stage, and, within CDRD, provides specialized expertise and infrastructure to transform them into commercially-viable investment opportunities. Dr. Pfeifer has lead and managed several multifaceted projects, including the study of aldoketoreductases (family of proteins) and serotonin (chemical messenger) receptors, the genomics and proteomic (large scale study of proteins) analysis of spinal cord damage and natural products screening for G-protein-coupled receptor (family of proteins) modulators. Dr. Pfeifer has published over 40 papers and participated in four patent applications. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the International Chemical Biology Society.