Vol.
32 No. 3
May-June 2010
Arun K. Ghosh is Awarded the 2010 IUPAC-Richter Prize
The 2010 IUPAC–Richter Prize in Medicinal Chemistry has been awarded to Dr. Arun K. Ghosh, Ian P. Rothwell Distinguished Professor at Purdue University. Ghosh received the award in recognition of his structure-based design of HIV-1 protease inhibitors using a novel concept of “backbone binding” to withstand drug resistance. This work produced the novel drug darunavir, which was approved by the FDA in 2006 as the first treatment for multidrug-resistant HIV. He has also pioneered structure-based design of β-secretase inhibitors for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. One such compound has now entered into advanced clinical trials.
The IUPAC–Richter Prize, comprising a plaque and USD 10 000, will be presented on 7 September 2010 at the 21st European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry International Symposium in Brussels, Belgium. The plaque will be signed by Nicole Moreau, president of IUPAC, Erik Bogsch, chief executive officer of Gedeon Richter plc (Budapest, Hungary), and Robin Ganellin, chair of the IUPAC–Richter Prize selection committee. As the prizewinner, Ghosh will present an award lecture at the symposium.
Arun Ghosh was born and raised in Calcutta, India. He studied chemistry at the University of Calcutta and received his B.Sc. degree in 1979. He then attended the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur to obtain a master’s degree in chemistry in 1981. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. He spent three years as a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. In 1988, he joined Merck Research Laboratories at West Point, Pennsylvania, as a medicinal chemist where he worked on several areas including HIV protease and reverse transcriptase.
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Darunavir forms an important hydrogen bonding network with protein backbone (black dotted lines). |
In 1994 Ghosh began his independent academic career at the University of Illinois, Chicago, eventually becoming professor of chemistry in 1998. In 2005, he moved to Purdue University, Indiana, with a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. He became the Ian P. Rothwell Distinguished Professor in 2009.
Ghosh received the ACS Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award in 2010 and the Robert Scarborough Award in Medicinal Chemistry in 2008. He is a founding scientist at CoMentis, Inc., Oklahoma City (2002). www.iupac.org/web/nt/2010-04-14_IUPAC-Richter_prize
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last modified 12 May 2010.
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