Thomas Smith is an Associate Director in the department of Academic Partnering and External Innovation at Novartis Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, USA. He is responsible for facilitating early strategic partnerships between the Novartis biomedical research organization and external academic institutions. Prior to this, he worked with project teams from the multiple disease areas at Novartis on new therapeutic modalities, drug prototypes, and enabling early-stage drug discovery efforts against disease-relevant targets of interest. He completed a MA and PhD in the department of Biological Sciences at the University at Buffalo, NY, USA, whilst his post-doctoral studies were at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, OH, USA.