Amit is a Senior Scientist in the Discovery Attribute Sciences Department. Since joining Amgen in 2015, he has been actively supporting various discovery projects for binding analysis to understand biology, validate targets, and identify lead therapeutic candidates (both small and large molecules). Additionally, he has played a key role in advancing the Induced Proximity Platform by developing methodologies to characterize heterobifunctional small molecules.

Amit began his graduate studies in Bioengineering with Prof. Paul Weiss at Pennsylvania State University, and subsequently finished at University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on developing biosensors to measure neurotransmitters. He later joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a post-doc where he developed biofunctionalized surfaces to explore membrane proteins using neutron scattering techniques.

Featured Publications

Vaish, A., Lin, J., McBride, H., Grandsard, P., and Chen, Q. Binding Affinity Determination of Therapeutic Antibodies to Membrane Protein Targets: Kinetic Exclusion Assay Using Cellular Membranes for anti-CD20 Antibody. Analytical Biochemistry 2020, 609, 58.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33010205/

Vaish, A., Guo, S., Murray, R., Grandsard, P., and Chen, Q. On-chip Membrane Protein Cell-free Expression Enables Development of a Direct Binding Assay: A Curious Case of Potassium Channel KcsA-Kv1.3. Analytical Biochemistry 2018, 556, 70.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29936096/

Vaish, A., Silin, V., Gawrisch, K., Krueger, S., and Vanderah, D. A Generalized Strategy to Fabricate Membrane-Proteins-Immobilized Surfaces. Chemical Communications 2013, 49, 2685.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23435270/

Vaish, A., Shuster, M.J., Weiss, P.S., and Andrews, A.M. Thin Gold Film-Assisted Fluorescence   Spectroscopy for Biomolecule Sensing. Analytical Chemistry 2011, 83, 7451.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21866911/

Vaish, A., Shuster, M.J., Weiss, P.S., and Andrews, A.M. Native Serotonin Membrane Receptors Recognize 5-Hydroxytryptophan-Functionalized Substrates: Enabling Small-Molecule Recognition. ACS Chemical Neuroscience 2010, 1, 495.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22778841/

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Ph.D., Bioengineering, University of California- Los Angeles and Pennsylvania State University
M.S., Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India