March 20, 2025 – When Josh Pottel ‘08 followed Professor Aniko Lysy’s suggestion to add a Computer Science minor to his BSc in Chemistry in 2008, neither imagined how pivotal that advice would be in his career.

Mr. Pottel was back at the College earlier this week to offer a seminar on Computer-Aided Drug Design to students in the Honours Science program.

Now CEO of Molecular Forecaster, a company he co-founded in 2019 as spinoff of his research at McGill, Mr. Pottel credited Professor Lysy for the decision that helped shape his academic and professional journey. He also thanked Mathematics professor Jean-François Deslandes for his mentorship, which has stayed with him long after his time at the College.

Mr. Pottel’s seminar gave students insight into the work of medicinal, synthetic, and computational chemists at the preclinical stage of drug design and introduced key concepts and theories in the field.

The College extends its gratitude to Josh Pottel for candidly sharing his journey, from Marianopolis Health Science to PhD studies at McGill and now as a founder and CEO.