Babak Mahjour

Babak Mahjour is an MIT-Novo Nordisk Artificial Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellow whose research interests lie in uniting chemical synthesis, data science, and engineering to drive translational studies. As part of his doctoral studies, Babak developed phactor, a software that facilitates the performance and analysis of high throughput experiments in a chemical laboratory. This tool enables users to access online reagent data and to procedurally generate multiplexed reaction array protocols that can be downloaded as human-readable instructions or as robotic executables. As a postdoctoral fellow, Babak seeks to develop protocols that accelerate the synthesis and evaluation of potential small molecule therapeutics. This will be achieved by linking synthetic campaigns with biological assays within a framework centered around a robotic infrastructure. Central to this work will be the development of robust, high-throughput, and assay-amenable high-value methodologies as well as the invention of novel reactivities. His work holds tremendous promise to advance the development of impactful treatments for various diseases and to promote sustainable chemistry practices in drug discovery.