About_Us

Susan Catalano, Ph.D., President
Dr. Catalano is President and founder of Drug Discovery Imaging, the only full service consulting firm specializing in High Content Screening. With over 20 years of experience as a cell biologist in the fields of neuroscience and oncology, Dr. Catalano received her Ph.D. from U.C. Irvine and postdoctoral training at U.C. Berkeley and Caltech. While a scientist at Roche Palo Alto, she held leadership positions in the Neurophysiology and Neuroimaging groups. As Director of Discovery Biology at Acumen Pharmaceuticals, she pioneered the use of image-based assay technology to detect physiological concentrations of Abeta42 oligomers bound to the surface of primary neurons in culture, a breakthrough that allowed small molecule library screening around this difficult Alzheimer’s disease target. She established and managed the High Content Screening Facility at Rigel Pharmaceuticals and developed a panel of digital image-based assays to serve multiple target validation/drug discovery projects in several therapy areas. One of the first groups to use digital imaging of cell-based assays as a primary screen, she also an inventor of the oncology P.A.D. assay. Profiled as an expert in CHI’s 2002 Report on High Content Screening, Dr. Catalano has been an invited speaker at industry conferences, hosted a workshop on the topic and is a member of the 21 CFR Part 11/Scientific Imaging Working Group. She taught the course on High Content Screening for IBC entitled “Digital Imaging with Automated Microscopy Systems: A Guide to Their Use in Drug Discovery”, and she is a member of the editorial board of Assay and Drug Development Technologies. Since founding DDI in February 2003, Dr. Catalano has assisted clients in pharmaceutical and biotech companies, instrument/reagent manufacturers, and the federal government with all aspects of implementation and management of digital imaging-based assay systems in the screening environment.