Keith began his career by working in the formulations department at Dow Agrosciences. This was where a love for chemistry began, as he graduated with a degree in Biology, and where he developed and honed his laboratory skills. In January, 2012 he started working with Cogent in the normal phase chromatography flash lab. With his hard-work ethic and ability to learn new processes quickly, he set himself apart and became well trusted by Cogent clients.

After working in the flash lab for nearly a year, he was given the opportunity to move to the open-access lab where he excelled doing HPLC and reversed phase flash purifications. His leadership and mentoring skills were rewarded with a promotion to team leader in February of 2014.

Keith has learned many purification techniques and has excelled at being efficient in each technique. He has expert knowledge in normal phase and reversed phase flash chromatography. He has been creative and innovative, which has allowed him to excel running HPLC purifications and large scale normal phase method development. He has shown his ability to learn quickly in the chiral lab where he mastered two purifications instruments. Keith has also processed samples for the APL lab. This required him to learn how to use a couple of automated liquid handlers, which he picked up very quickly in a time of need. He has shown the desire to grow and become a large contributor in several different areas. With his ability to master several types of purification techniques, he is able to train and assist several labs to account for changing work flows.

Keith graduated from Indiana University in 2008 with a B.A. in Biology. In 7 years in the professional industry, he has gained valuable experience as a chemist and has become a very large asset to Cogent Scientific.

Stephanie Bartlett is currently serving as an Analytical Chemist V and Team Leader for various groups and has been serving in this role since June 2014. Stephanie initially began her career as a contract chemist with VMC working on site at Eli Lilly and Company in the fully integrated remote access Automated Synthesis Lab. During her employment with VMC, her work ethic and skills were noticed by Cogent and she was offered a position. Stephanie joined Cogent in November 2011 as an Analytical Chemist working with the Physical Properties group in the Solubility and Stability lab. She joined the Chiral Purification lab in July 2012 and has worked on both small and large scale purifications. Stephanie has since learned other purification techniques and has been trained in both normal and reverse phase purification. In 2019, she began to work more exclusively to development normal phase purification methods for the various automated labs but still maintains the skills required to assist in the numerous labs as needed. Stephanie has excelled in all areas she has worked in largely due to her willingness to both learn from and help her peers and colleagues.

During her employment with Cogent Scientific, Stephanie has gained valuable knowledge and experience working with the Solubility and Stability Group as well as the numerous Purification Groups, furthering her proficiencies in sample preparation, method development, trouble shooting, LCMS, HPLC, SFC, TLC, and flash chromatography. Her combined education and professional experiences have helped develop Stephanie into a top notch chemist with the ability to adapt to the situation while producing results.

Stephanie was born and raised in Anderson, Indiana. She graduated from Anderson University with a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry in 2009. She was immediately selected by her professors for an accelerated Masters of Business Administration program with Anderson University and graduated in 2010.

Kate began her career as a chemist in the in-process quality control testing group at Cook Pharmaceuticals after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Indiana University. There she set herself apart by her strong initiative to become proficient in a wide variety of analytical techniques and instrumentation, including UV/Vis, FTIR, GC, Karl Fischer Coulometers, Osmometers, Headspace Analyzers, Particle Counters, Endotoxin Readers, TOC Analyzers, with an emphasis on reversed phase and ion exchange HPLC. She quickly become an important contact in the laboratory for the drug formulation team to turn to for quick and efficient testing as well as troubleshooting and investigating out of specification results.

Kate eventually joined the technical service team and was responsible for writing several batch record templates for pharmaceutical manufacturing by working closely with clients and other departments. She also carried out extensive investigations into processing failures and recommended corrective action when necessary.

After realizing she was happiest in the laboratory, Kate took a position with the finished process quality control group. There she enjoyed a wide variety of responsibilities in addition to routine testing, including working in conjunction with the research and development group in the improvement and validation of HPLC assays; writing, reviewing and revising standard operating procedures (SOP’s) used in the laboratory for specific pharmaceutical analysis as well as for instrument operation. She was a member of a documentation team to develop a new worksheet based documentation system with a focus on easing LIMS integration. Because of her former experience in the technical services group, she was a primary resource for the review of batch records, both executed and templates, when pertaining to in-process and finished product testing. She was also responsible for writing and reviewing exception reports generated in the laboratory, and provided guidance to other analysts in writing exception reports.

After purchasing and relocating to a small hobby farm just north of Lebanon, Indiana, Kate began employment with Cogent in 2010 working in the Quantitative Biology group primarily doing LC/MS/MS. There she has continued to increase her skill set and knowledge base. She has shown herself to be a valuable asset to the lab and takes pride in performing tasks, whether big or small, thoroughly, correctly, and with great enthusiasm.

Stephanie Dennler-Sima is currently serving as an Analytical Chemist IV in a state-of-the-art automated science studio in the San Diego area. Stephanie started her career as a bench chemist at Trilogy Analytical Lab in Missouri doing Mycotoxin and allergen testing in 2010. She started working for Cogent in Indianapolis in the Automated Purification Lab in 2017. After starting in the APL, she took it upon herself to learn all the automated processes within the lab using the liquid handlers and Prep LCMS’s; this led to being offered a team leader promotion in 2018 along with a job offer to move to San Diego for the new fully automated lab build up.

While employed with Cogent, Stephanie has learned much about reverse phase purification and automation techniques. After moving to San Diego she learned more about automated techniques becoming the primary user of the automated science studio’s robotics SPE platform, data analysis software, liquid handler modules, and LCMS/prep-LCMS automated modules.

Stephanie graduated from the University of Iowa in 2010 with a B.S. in Biology. Her 7 years of experience in Missouri and last 3 years of experience with Cogent have made her an vital asset to the Cogent Team.

After studying chemistry at the University of Missouri and post-graduate studies in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas, Steve enjoyed a brief stint with Farmland Industries researching agrochemicals in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. Upon the closure of Farmland’s R&D facility, Steve moved east and resumed his career in pharmaceutical research as a medicinal chemist with SmithKline Beecham in the Philadelphia area. His work at SB was focused primarily on peptidomimetic inhibitors of the newly-characterized HIV protease as potential treatments for AIDS. Steve then returned to the Midwest as a medicinal chemist with Abbott Laboratories where he was instrumental in helping discover several preclinical candidates for oncology and cardiovascular diseases in the renin inhibitor, squalene synthase, and farnesyl transferase programs.

Moving from the Chicagoland area to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Steve accepted a position as a medicinal chemist with Pfizer in 2001. His research at Pfizer resulted in a number of clinical candidates for multiple kinase and nuclear hormone receptor targets, highlighted by the co-discovery of dacomitinib, currently approved and marketed as Vizimpro® for metastatic non-small cell lung carcinoma. Upon the closure of the Pfizer Ann Arbor site, Steve joined Life Technologies in Madison, Wisconsin, developing novel, fluorescently-linked, small molecule probes of various kinases and epigenetic targets to use in new TR-FRET and FP high-throughput screening assays.

In addition, he wrote and revised manufacturing protocols for a variety of products to streamline their manufacture and comply with the requirements of LT’s quality management system. In 2012, Steve joined AMRI, initially in the synthetic chemistry group and ultimately as the leader of the staff running the Automated Synthesis Lab. In April of 2019, Steve transitioned to Cogent Scientific where he is currently the team lead for Cogent’s synthetic group, which includes the Automated Synthesis Lab, the Hydrogenation & Pressure Lab, and the Catalysis Lab.

Steve graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.S. in Chemistry. Steve continued his education at the University of Kansas with two years of graduate study in their Medicinal/Organic Chemistry PhD program.

Caitlyn began working for Cogent in the normal phase chromatography flash lab in October of 2015, and has served as a Team Lead since July of 2019. Prior to coming to Cogent, she worked in various livestock care and reproduction fields around Indiana. She has worked for one of the 10 largest pork producers in the United States along with a small ruminant reproduction veterinary group out of central Indiana, focusing on embryo transfer and artificial insemination work. Throughout her diverse work background she has achieved several transferable skills, especially her attentiveness to accomplish desired results quickly.

Since Caitlyn has been employed with Cogent she has gained an immense amount of knowledge and has been exposed to new areas of research. She has been introduced to and excelled in numerous areas including normal and reverse phase flash chromatography, HPLC, cell culture work, affinity selection mass spectrometry and the QC/molecular properties area. Her combined education and unique work background has made her highly versatile and reliable. She enjoys sharing her knowledge to help assist others with troubleshooting as well as training others in new areas. Her comprehensive skill set and driven attitude make her an invaluable asset to Cogent.

Caitlyn graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Products/Sciences and a Minor in Biology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.