Khuloud Takrouri
Director, Chemistry and Bioconjugation Orum Therapeutics, Inc.
Dr. Khuloud Takrouri is Executive Director and Head of Chemistry at Orum Therapeutics, where she leads medicinal and bioconjugation chemistry across multiple oncology programs. With more than 20 years of experience spanning ADCs, linker design, payload optimization, and small‑molecule discovery, she has driven innovation as Director of Chemistry & Bioconjugation and previously as Platform Chemistry Lead. Before Orum, Khuloud spent four years at GSK advancing autoimmune and oncology programs and managing global CRO partnerships. She began her career in academic research at Northeastern University, Harvard Medical School, and the Hebrew University, focusing on antibacterial agents and protein–protein interaction inhibitors.
Seminars
As the field expands beyond traditional cytotoxic payloads toward degraders and other complex, hydrophobic modalities, linker and conjugation chemistry must evolve to solve escalating biophysical challenges. From high-DAR constructs to degrader-antibody conjugates, the central question emerges: how do we push payload complexity and loading capacity without compromising stability, manufacturability, or in vivo performance?
Join leading experts as they discuss how novel linker architectures, advanced analytical precision, and site-selective
conjugation strategies can be integrated into cohesive platforms by:
- Balancing high payload loading with biophysical stability, examining how innovative linker architectures and hydrophobicity mitigating designs can enable DAR 8 and greater while preserving solubility, structural integrity, and favorable pharmacokinetics
- Redefining conjugation control as a platform enabler, debating how pyridazinedione-based site-selective strategies and advanced analytical tools can deliver precise, homogeneous DAR control to unlock reproducible, scalable next-generation constructs
- Harnessing traceless and site-specific linker strategies to enable emerging modalities, evaluating how degrader-compatible, hydrophobicity-masking, and cleavable designs can expand the ADC paradigm to include degrader-antibody conjugates and other novel payload classes without sacrificing developability or therapeutic index
- Advancing beyond traditional ADC linker paradigms with proprietary traceless, site-specific conjugation chemistry that enables stable attachment of cereblonbased degraders while preserving intrinsic payload structure and improving overall conjugate solubility
- Engineering hydrophilicity directly into linker architecture through modular, water-solubilizing elements and conditional intracellular release triggers to systematically mitigate degrader-driven hydrophobicity and reduce aggregation risk
- Leveraging linker–conjugation integration within the PROTAb platform to achieve controlled intracellular release, molecular homogeneity, and biophysical stability, unlocking Degrader-Antibody Conjugates capable of targeting undruggable proteins
