Anthony Jon Roecker, PhD, began his professional career at Merck Discovery Chemistry, West Point, in 2004, where he currently works as a Principal Scientist. He is the current chemistry lead for the alpha-synuclein PET program at Merck. During his career as a medicinal chemist, Dr. Roecker has participated in all phases of drug discovery from high-throughput screening triage to lead identification and lead optimization across a variety of therapeutic areas.  He has worked on six pre-clinical candidates that advanced to human trials including a first-in-class therapeutic for insomnia. Dr. Roecker has made contributions to Merck's program strategy including hit finding strategies, series selection, and candidate nomination.

Dr. Roecker received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Ohio State University and his doctorate from The Scripps Research Institute under the guidance of Professor K. C. Nicolaou. His graduate research focused on novel parallel chemistry methods and complex natural product synthesis.