Brian Smart, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Chemistry

Brian Smart, PhD, is Associate Director of Chemistry at Centivax, where he leads the design and synthesis of novel chemistries advancing the company’s vaccine and therapeutic programs. A chemical biologist with more than two decades of experience, Brian brings deep expertise in synthetic and bioconjugation chemistry, oligonucleotide and peptide synthesis, assay development, and the mass spectrometric characterization of biomolecules.

Before joining Centivax, he held leadership roles at Bruker Spatial Genomics, Elegen Bio, and Agilent Technologies, pioneering new methods across spatial biology, gene synthesis, and DNA and RNA synthesis. He completed his postdoctoral training with Nobel laureate Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi at UC Berkeley and earned his PhD in medicinal and organic chemistry from the University of Washington.

Brian is a named inventor on numerous issued patents and a co-author of publications spanning glycoproteomics, mass spectrometry, and drug discovery.