Elix, Inc. is an AI drug discovery company with the mission of "Rethinking Drug Discovery".
In addition to talented AI researchers and AI engineers, many of the team members have Ph.D. degrees and come from different specialities such as chemistry, biology and physics. This diverse lineup gives us the capability to always be on the cutting-edge of AI research and development.
The Elix team consists of a diverse international team who all share a strong passion for AI drug discovery and machine learning. Together we strive to solve some of the world's most challenging problems.
Project Leader & Research Engineer
Casey received a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University and a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, both in Chemical Engineering. Prior to joining Elix, he developed medical diagnostic platforms as a Research Manager at Sysmex Corporation. Casey first came to Japan as a post-doctoral scholar at the OIST. He has published 12 peer-reviewed journal articles and a book chapter in the fields of polymer chemistry, materials science and microfluidics.
Full Stack Engineer
After a Master’s degree in software engineering at the University of Marne-la-Vallee in France, he worked for over 19 years as a software developer / technical consultant, solving problems on a broad range of systems, from low latency trading engine to grid computing or embedded devices. As a long time user of Debian, he often does system and network maintenance too, bordering on DevOps. On his free time, he likes roller blading, playing Factorio or a low-tech game of Go. Hand ground beans / V60 pour-over coffee maniac. Now living in Kobe, he joined Elix on May 2021.
Research Engineer
After completing his Bachelor in Physics from Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, he obtained a Master in Artificial Intelligence from KU Leuven in Belgium. Prior to joining Elix, he worked two years in Tokyo as a Machine Learning Engineer in the automotive industry, focusing in Computer Vision, and non-classical behavior and planning algorithms. Here he helped develop and deploy new algorithms in vehicles and authored a patent in computer vision. Has a strong passion for researching new technologies.
Research Engineer
Haris received his Bachelor and Masters degree in Computer Science from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After working as a full-time Teaching Assistant at the University of Sarajevo and a part-time AI Researcher for a year, he continued to pursue a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, through the Japanese Government MEXT scholarship. He has gained experience in working with relational database systems, web and mobile applications, and machine learning systems in logistics before joining Elix in September 2020.
Research Engineer
After completing both Bachelor and Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Federal Universities in Nigeria, Joshua continued to pursue and earn a Ph.D. in System Information Science from Tohoku University, Japan, through the Japanese Government MEXT scholarship. He has gained industry experience and developed deep learning solutions for perception in consumer electronics, and autonomous vehicles before joining Elix in June 2020.
Research Engineer
Majoring in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, prior to joining Elix, Jun Jin obtained his Ph.D. and Master's degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology. Before that, he received his Bachelor in Computer Science degree from RMIT University, Melbourne. Passionate about research and development on machine learning, Jun Jin has spent his free time working with various technology companies throughout his studies. As a Malaysian, he enjoys the cultural diversity and uniqueness of both Elix and Japan.
Research Engineer
Loïc received his Master’s degree from ESIEA in France majoring in Computer Science where he received a scholarship. During his master, he carried out machine learning related research at ESIEA CVO laboratory, he also did internships at Fujitsu Laboratories in both Tokyo and London offices.
He then worked as a researcher for 2 years at Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe in London as an AI researcher prior to joining Elix in 2021.
Research Engineer
On his journey from Kyrgyzstan to Japan, Nazim spent 6 years in Istanbul, obtaining his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Molecular Biology from Fatih University. He then earned a Ph.D. degree in Immunology from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU). Prior to joining Elix in April 2020, Nazim worked as a research fellow at TMDU.
Lead Research Engineer
Double majored in Computer Science and Psychology and furthered his studies with a graduate course in Mathematics, Romeo has been a professional software engineer for the past 7 years before joining Elix in February 2019.
Operating Officer & Corporate Planning Director
After graduation from Waseda University, Saki worked as a strategic planner at LIFULL Co., Ltd., and joined Creww Inc. in 2015. Has experienced the operations of accelerator programs and the launches of several new businesses, she joined Elix in 2018 and is now responsible for corporate planning, recruitment, finance, accounting, legal and public relations.
Co-Founder & CEO
Shinya earned a Ph.D. in physics. After working as an engineer at DeNA and a Singapore startup, he co-founded Elix in 2016.
Business development
After working in the administration department of an electronics manufacturing company and in the sales department for Recruit Co., Ltd., she obtained a master’s degree (MBA) from the Graduate School of Business Administration, Keio University. After graduation, she has experienced business development at two university-based healthcare startups before joining Elix in March 2022.
Research Engineer
Takahiro majored in mathematical engineering at Kyoto University and then began a master’s program at the Department of Chemical Systems Engineering, the University of Tokyo. He conducted studies on chemoinformatics and was conferred a Ph.D. in Engineering. He joined Elix in April 2022. He has co-authored books on deep learning methods in chemistry.
Project Leader
Takayuki got a bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Tokyo and a master's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Imperial College London. He started his career at EY-Parthenon Japan as an M&A consultant involving with project management, cross-border PMI, strategy planning, and valuation. He moved to PKSHA (a listed AI start-up in Japan) to create a new venture capital with a focus on AI arena as a founding member and investment committee. He then became an independent advisor to manage AI-related projects including AI pharma and AI robotics.
Co-Founder & COO
Tatsuya majored in electrical and electronics engineering at National College of Technology (Kosen), and got a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Tsukuba. He did an internship at a startup in Singapore. After graduation, he co-founded Elix in 2016. Lifelong learner. He wants to be immortal.
Research Engineer
After studying signal processing and machine learning two years at Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Thomas did a research’s program at Keio University, in which he graduated with a master’s thesis on sleep pathology detection using convolutional neural network and sleeping heart rate. Enjoys good food and classical music.
Research Engineer
After finishing double degree curriculum at ESTIA, an Engineer school in France and Crandfield University, Vincent took a Post-Master’s Degree in Machine Learning at Télécom Paris. After his internship in a medical start up in fracture detection in Paris, he joined Elix in April 2021. Enjoys both climbing and old movies.