Ryan Kruger received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 where he studied enzymes responsible for bacterial cell wall biosynthesis. From there, he did a postdoc with Chris Walsh studying non-ribosomal peptide synthesis of glycopeptide antibiotics at Harvard. Following his postdoc, Ryan joined GlaxoSmithKline in 2005 as a Principal Scientist within the Enzymology and Mechanistic Pharmacology Department.  Over his 16-year tenure at GSK, Ryan transitioned into oncology drug discovery, became the Head of Biology for the Cancer Epigenetics Unit, led the clinical development of their LSD1 inhibitor, and eventually took the lead as the Head of the Cancer Epigenetics Research Unit.  In this role, he was responsible for a group of scientists tasked with advancing an industry leading portfolio of novel, first in class agents targeting epigenetic machinery from target identification through first time in human clinical trials.  These agents included inhibitors of the BET family, EZH2, LSD1, PRMT5, and Type I PRMT enzymes.  In 2021, Ryan left pharma and joined Foghorn, a chromatin biology biotech focused on the SWI/SNF remodeling complex, as their Head of Biology.  Before joining SK Life Science Labs, Ryan served as Chief Scientific Officer at Anagenex, a company using machine learning and DNA-encoded libraries to identify novel drug candidates.