About Us
Christopher J. Welch, Ph.D.
Scientific Consultant Specializing in:
- Separation Science, Chirality and Stereochemistry
- Pharmaceutical Process R&D
- High Throughput Experimentation
- Pharmaceutical & Biopharmaceutical Industry
- New Research Technologies
- Strategic Planning
- Scientific Publication and Communication Strategy
Biographical Sketch
Christopher J. Welch is a principal with Welch Innovation, LLC, an independent research and consulting firm. He serves as the Executive Director of the Indiana Consortium for Analytical Sciences and Engineering (ICASE), a joint venture between Purdue, Notre Dame and Indiana University (link). Chris also serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Snapdragon Chemistry, Inc. and Enantiosense, LLC. Dr. Welch has worked in a variety of fields within the chemical industry, including discovery synthesis of agrochemicals (Velsicol-Sandoz), development of reagents for improved immunodiagnostic assays (Abbott Laboratories), development and commercialization of chromatographic stationary phases, reagents and enantioselective catalysts within a small chemical business environment (Regis Technologies) invention and application of new purification, analysis and high throughput experimentation technologies for pharmaceutical process research (Merck & Co.) and as a Science Advisor for the US FDA. While at Merck, Dr. Welch created and administered Merck's postdoctoral research fellows program and managed a multi-million-dollar fund and research network that identified, evaluated and acquired more than 300 new enabling technologies for pharmaceutical discovery and development. Dr. Welch has authored more than 250 scientific publications and patents. He is co-founder of the journal, Enantiomer, a member of the editorial advisory board for the journals, Chirality, Journal of the Korean Chemical Society, Chemistry World and ACS Central Science. Chris is past chair of the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry (ORGN), a member of the Executive Committee for the International Symposia on Chirality and the PittCon Program Resource Team, vice-chair of Pacifichem 2020 and co-founder of the Enabling Technologies Consortium (ETC). Honors and awards include the NJCG Award for Excellence in Chromatography (2004), the PACS Activated Carbon Hall of Fame award (2007), MRL Presidents Award for Environmental Achievement (2009), Microsoft Life Science Innovation Award (2010), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2010), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS (2013) the Chirality Medal (2015), the University of Nebraska Chemistry Industrial Award (2016) the EAS Award for Outstanding Achievement in Separation Science (2017) and the Uwe Neue Award in Separation Science (2019).
Recent Publications
For a complete listing, see the GoogleScholar page here.
Current Challenges and Future Prospects in Chromatographic Method Development for Pharmaceutical Research, Frederick T. Mattrey, Alexey A. Makarov, Erik L. Regalado, Frank Bernardoni. Margaret Figus, Michael B. Hicks, Jinjian Zheng, Lin Wang, Wes Schafer, Vincent Antonucci, Simon E. Hamilton, Kerstin Zawatzky, Christopher J. Welch, Tr. Anal. Chem. 95, 36-46, 2017 (link).
Are We Approaching a Speed Limit for the Chromatographic Separation of Enantiomers? Christopher J. Welch, ACS Cent. Sci. 3, 823-829, 2017 (free open access link).
Rapid Determination of Humulones and Isohumulones in Beers Using MISER LC-MS Analysis, Bruce C. Hamper, Kerstin Zawatzky, Vivian Zhang, and Christopher J. Welch, J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem. 75, 333-338, 2017 (link).
Modeling and predicting chiral stationary phase enantioselectivity: An efficient random forest classifier using an optimally balanced training dataset and an aggregation strategy, Patrick Piras, Robert Sheridan, Christopher J. Welch and Christian Roussel, J. Sep. Sci.41, 1365-1375, 2018 (link).
Enabling Biocatalysis by High Throughput Protein Engineering Using Droplet Microfluidics Coupled to Mass Spectrometry, Xue Diefenbach, Iman Farasat, Erik Guetschow, Christopher J. Welch, Robert Kennedy, Shuwen Sun, Jeffrey Moore, ACS Omega, 2018, 3, 1498-1508 link.
Mapping the Dark Space of Chemical Reactions with Extended Nanomole Synthesis and MALDI-TOF MS
Shishi Lin, Sergei Dikler, William D. Blincoe, Ronald D. Ferguson, Robert P. Sheridan, Zhengwei Peng, Donald V. Conway, Kerstin Zawatzky, Heather Wang, Tim Cernak, Ian W. Davies, Daniel A. DiRocco, Huaming Sheng,* Christopher J. Welch*, Spencer D. Dreher*, Science, available online, 2018 (link)