Chemistry Seminar Next Tuesday: Bugs, Bacteria and Drugs from Nature
Click for more information about Dr. Clardy. I’ve heard that he is a very engaging speaker. There will be tea and cookies served as well.
Jon Clardy joined the Harvard Medical School at the beginning of 2003 as a Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. His research involves many aspects of biologically active small molecules, especially those known as natural products. He is closely affiliated with the Initiative in Chemical Genetics, an effort to broaden the range of small molecule therapeutic agents, and more generally moderators of all biological processes, through the screening of libraries of structurally diverse compounds in both ad hoc and systematic screens. In the area of malaria, Jon’s laboratory defined the structure of a crucial enzymatic target, P. falciparum’s dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), for antimalarial agents. His current activities include finding new molecular templates for DHODH inhibitors and understanding the structural basis of its mechanism, work funded by the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund. He is also engaged in forward chemical genetic screens to find new targets for antimalarial and antitrypanosomal therapy.
Jon graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, both in chemistry. He joined the chemistry faculty of Iowa State University and a few years later moved to Cornell University where he remained for over twenty years. He has received many awards for his research including fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He has also received the Ernest Guenther Award and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and the Research Achievement Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and won Cornell’s highest award for teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.
