Dr. James Ernst is the Executive Director of Development Sciences at Xencor Inc. where he leads Protein Sciences & Technology. Major responsibilities for these functions include guiding therapeutic molecules from late-stage research into clinical development, companion diagnostics, animal efficacy models, antibody discovery, research materials and protein biophysical characterization. Prior to joining Xencor, he held various leadership positions in the Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED) Protein Sciences division.
He has more than 20 years of experience supporting all stages of therapeutic molecule development from target identification to clinical validation. He has worked with and led both large and small molecule therapeutic discovery teams in a variety of therapeutic areas including oncology immunotherapy, auto-immune disease, neuroscience, and metabolic disease. He received his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from Yale University and completed post-Doctoral Studies in Molecular and Cell Biology at the Stanford University Medical School.
