Kamran Honarnejad, Ph.D.

Program Co-Chair

Kamran Honarnejad, Ph.D., is currently a Group Leader in the In Vitro Biology department at Evotec in Hamburg, Germany. With more than 15 years of experience in drug discovery, his expertise covers various aspects of the field, including target identification and validation, development of disease-relevant and cell-based assays, high-throughput screening, hit-to-lead, lead optimization and pharmacological profiling across therapeutic areas. Leading a dynamic team at Evotec, he specializes in drug target identification and validation using CRISPR technology.

Between 2017 and 2021, Kamran served as the group leader for high-throughput drug and target discovery at the Fraunhofer ITEM in Regensburg, overseeing high-throughput small molecule and genetic perturbation screens. Between 2013 and 2017, he led a project team at the Neuroallianz public-private partnership consortium between University of Bonn and UCB Pharma, focusing on identifying novel drug targets for neurodegenerative diseases by high-throughput RNAi screening.

Kamran studied biotechnology at Mannheim University of Applied Sciences and earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where his research between 2007 and 2013 focused on identifying preclinical drug candidates for Alzheimer's disease by HTS received an SLAS Tony B. Travel Award.

Kamran is an SLAS Fellow Member, has co-chaired the Knowledge Content and Delivery Council (KCDC) from 2019 to 2021 and currently serves on the ESPC and as judge panel member for New Product Award (NPA). He also chaired the Precision Medicine Technologies track at SLAS Europe 2021 and is chairing the Omics track and Functional Genomics track at the SLAS 2025 International Conference and Exhibition in San Diego.