One More for New York: Chemist to Build Drug Discovery Institute

This may not have been a good year for New York's professional football teams, but a Faculty Development Program award from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) will enable the University to keep Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Iwao Ojima to continue working toward the development of anti-cancer and other drugs. The award will be used to help create the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the University, whose mission will focus on understanding the molecular basis of diseases, therapeutic targets, drug actions and drug resistance. Prof. Ojima's primary research, long supported by NIH and NSF, centers on the design, synthesis, and structure-activity relationship of biologically active compounds of medicinal interest and, particularly, on discovery and development of new and potent anti-cancer agents, especially ones that can be taken orally. The research will be performed in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians from the University as well as the pharmaceutical industry. The Institute will aggressively pursue the development of intellectual property so that its discoveries may be disseminated widely and rapidly through the marketplace.

Prof. Ojima, a recipient of the E.B. Herschberg Award from the American Chemical Society for his outstanding discoveries in the chemistry of medicinally active substances and the holder of 24 patents, has recently developed compounds in a new generation of taxane anti-cancer agents that exhibit significantly better efficacy and fewer side effects than the blockbuster cancer drug, Taxol, and are orally active; clinical trials are under way.

NYSTAR also recognized Stony Brook with an award in the first round of its new James D. Watson Investigator Program, which seeks to support outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show potential for leadership and scientific discovery in biotechnology. Glenn R. Gaudette, the newest faculty addition to Biomedical Engineering, is the recipient.

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