Prior to joining the firm, Thomas was a Regulatory Writer in Emerging Technologies API MSAT company in Copenhagen, Denmark where he ensured the accuracy, quality, and regulatory compliance of drug substance documentation for regulatory submissions. Previously, Thomas worked at an international full-service law firm as a junior patent agent and then an intermediate patent agent where he gained experience in U.S. and foreign patent preparation and prosecution, portfolio and docket management, and intellectual property due diligence, as well as freedom-to-operate, patentability, and landscape analyses in the small molecule pharmaceutical space.

Before launching his legal career, Thomas established a robust scientific foundation through both his Ph.D. research at the University of California, Berkeley in the Lab of Professor F. Dean Toste and his postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA in the Lab of Professor Abigail Doyle, where he developed expertise in organometallic/organic synthesis, reaction design, catalysis and process development.

During his graduate studies, Thomas developed organometallic methodologies to generate fluorinated motifs in stereocontrolled fashions. His gold-catalyzed hydrofluorination reaction highlighted that traditional approaches to incorporate fluorine into compounds (i.e. approaches that utilize either a nucleophilic or an electrophilic fluoride source with non-fluorinated starting material) may provide straightforward access to certain motifs (i.e. β-fluoro Michael Acceptors). For his second project, Thomas showcased that other fluorinated motifs necessitate alternative approaches (i.e. selective cleavage of a single C–F bond of polyfluorinated starting material) and demonstrated for the first time that enantioselective β-fluoride elimination can be achieved to generate axially chiral, tetrasubstituted monofluoroallenes. In the Doyle Lab, Thomas focused on the development of metallaphotoredox catalyzed enantioconvergent C(sp3)–H, C(sp3)–X cross-coupling. During these efforts, he uncovered a variety of acridinium photocatalysts that had extended excited-state lifetimes, which were later shown to improve the reactivities of an oxidative radical-polar crossover (ORPC) reaction.

Thomas’ research has led him to co-author several peer-reviewed journal articles and present at professional conferences.