Greg Lazar
Senior Director & Senior Principal Scientist, Antibody Engineering
"Be the ball."
My scientific background is in protein folding, protein design, structural biology, and antibody engineering. I am blessed with the opportunity to do research and drug discovery at such an innovative leader in antibody therapeutics. Every day at Genentech I work with an army of extraordinarily talented colleagues to drive biotherapeutic innovation and tackle life's most difficult diseases.
Postdoctoral Mentor
Genentech's postdoc program is a great example of how committed we are to basic science, and I consider it a privilege to be a mentor in this program. With the backing of tremendous laboratory resources, postdocs here are encouraged to explore the most important and challenging problems, regardless of how distal the science is to our drug pipeline. In many respects this is why postdocs are so valuable to Genentech, because it effectively commits incredible intellectual horsepower to explore original research directions and open new doors to innovation. It is a great formula for enabling future generations of biotech medicines.
Featured Publication
Tetravalent biepitopic targeting enables intrinsic antibody agonism of tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily members.
MAbs, 2019, 11(6):996-1011.
Yang Y, Yeh SH, Madireddi S, Matochko WL, Gu C, Pacheco Sanchez P, Ultsch M, De Leon Boenig G, Harris SF, Leonard B, Scales SJ, Zhu JW, Christensen E, Hang JQ, Brezski RJ, Marsters S, Ashkenazi A, Sukumaran S, Chiu H, Cubas R, Kim JM, Lazar GA.
My group is focused on developing novel technologies to enable the next generation of therapeutic antibodies. The goals of our research includes optimization of Fc interactions to enhance pharmacologic properties, development of new methods to enable high-throughput production and screening of complex antibody formats, and engineering of antibodies for novel activities and mechanisms of action. We leverage any and all tools at our disposal, including structure-guided rational design, selection-based engineering, next generation sequencing, automation, and protein chemical conjugation. Our group carries out both exploratory and translational research, partnering with colleagues across the research organization to advance therapeutic candidates in molecular oncology, cancer immunotherapy, and neuroscience.
- Cambridge University, Postdoctoral Fellow – 2001
- University of California Berkeley, Ph.D. – 1999
- Penn State University, B.S. – 1993
- Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowship – 1999-2001
- National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship – 1993-1996