Weina Cong, PhD

Dr. Weina Cong profile photo

Dr. Vivian Cong

Vice President of Research & Development

Dr. Cong has 15+ years experience in metabolic diseases including diabetes, fatty liver disease, NASH and obesity. She also has extensive experience in fibrotic diseases especially liver fibrosis and pulmonary fibrosis. Dr. Cong has authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles and multiple drug discovery patents in both China and US.

Dr. Cong received her Ph.D. in pharmacology from the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), China. During her Ph.D. study, she focused on the mechanisms of various metabolic diseases and gained extensive experience on multiple preclinical pharmacology models of metabolic syndrome. Subsequently, she conducted her postdoctoral training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Canada during which she did in-depth investigation on hyperlipidemia.

From 2010 through 2015, as a research fellow, Dr. Cong continued her research career at the Metabolism Unit of Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute on Aging in the US. During the time at NIH, Dr. Cong not only continued gaining extensive knowledge and experience on metabolic diseases, but also expanded her research scope to neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Neuro-endocrinology is one of her specialties.

Dr. Cong joined Melior Discovery in 2016. She truly believes in our mission and drug repositioning strategy and wants to achieve excellence in preclinical pharmacology of drug discovery at Melior Discovery. In addition to work, Dr. Cong enjoys cooking and nature.

We chose Melior Discovery because they were responsive and cost effective. We are staying with them as a chosen scientific partner because of their thoughtful scientific input to experimental design and attention to detail. Their expertise and flexibility allowed us to quickly adapt the study design and evaluate additional outcome measures to pursue unexpected activity.
Sridharan Rajamani, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist
Gilead Sciences
I have been working with Melior on a number of projects over the course of a few years now. They have been a great partner throughout this time. The scientists whom I have worked with have been great problem-solvers and were customer focused.
Jay Lichter
Avalon Ventures
Melior provided State-of-the-art Preclinical Pharmacology Support for a period of nearly a year where a series of in vivo studies were completed on a weekly basis. The staff was extremely user-friendly and the operational processes were excellent. I can recommend Melior without reservation.
Richard DiMarchi, PhD
Cox Professor of Chemistry & Gill Chair in Biomolecular Sciences Indiana University, Department of Chemistry
Because Melior could do the orthotopic intracranial implants, we were able to do survival studies with brain tumor-bearing animals that were treated with our therapy, showing a beautiful survival with our agent versus control. Talk about something that gets your investors going! These beautiful survival curves with our agent versus control and visual photos are in all of our investor decks because… it's powerful.
Bruce Ruggeri, Ph.D.
Modifi Bio
Melior works in many therapeutic areas, like CNS, inflammatory disease, GI, cardiovascular, and oncology. I was very pleased that when it came to doing tumor studies, both subcutaneous and intracranial, they did them well. They reported on the studies on time and did the data analysis really well.
Bruce Ruggeri, Ph.D.
Modifi Bio
Their areas of expertise are extensive, and they are very experienced, responsive, and flexible in terms of how the study is run. Their pricing is reasonable, making them the best option for a young, not well-funded company like ours.
Maxine Gowen
Tamuro Bio
Melior’s team was very experienced and knowledgeable. They were always very open to suggestions and questions, spending a lot of time helping us feel comfortable with the study design. I would give them very high marks.
Maxine Gowen
Tamuro Bio
The most important factors in choosing to work with Melior were the fit between the tests they could run and our needs, as well as their tight budget and proximity. Melior was the best fit for our research goals.
Ira Spector
SFA Therapeutics