Dr. Oliver Hill is an expert for protein engineering and invented several agonistic fusion protein formats targeting the TNF receptor superfamily. He is co-founder of TriCos Biotherapeutics and the designated CSO. In his former positions at Apogenix, he and his team transformed the single-chain TNFSF fusion protein technology into a bi-specific platform approach combining tumor targeting with T-cell co-stimulatory pathway activation. Prior to his positions at Apogenix, he headed the protein expression and purification group at Graffinity Pharmaceutical Design GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany). At Graffinity he was responsible for delivering a broad spectrum of target proteins for screening on a chemical microarray platform. His work in former academic R&D positions at the Lower Saxony Institute for Peptide Research (Hannover, Germany) and the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (Jena, Germany) included gene hunting, protein engineering and the development of recombinant phage display technologies. He studied biology at the University of Hannover where he also received his Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry in 1997.