Karen Conrad

Karen S. Conrad is Scientific Associate Director of Protein Chemistry in the Global Structural Biology group at Takeda, where she leads a team responsible for protein production for stakeholders across the organization. She is a protein chemist specializing in membrane protein research, with more than a decade of industrial laboratory experience in small-molecule drug discovery. Karen previously served as Principal Scientist in Physical Biochemistry at Biogen, leading multidisciplinary projects spanning construct design, protein purification, and structural characterization. Earlier in her career, she was a Senior Scientist at Pfizer, contributing to soluble and membrane protein target production and characterization. She completed postdoctoral research at Cornell University in Brian Crane’s lab, focusing on light-activated circadian clock proteins. Karen earned a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Thomas Brunold’s lab, where her thesis explored the transport and utilization of B12, and holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Claremont McKenna College. Her expertise spans molecular biology, biophysics, structural biology, spectroscopy, and computational analysis.