Frontiers in Pharmaceutical Sciences Lecture Series - No. 190
Rational Drug Design and Discovery via Rational Design
Topic：Rational Drug Design and Discovery via Rational Design
Speaker: Prof. Chang-Guo Zhan, Ph.D., University of Kentucky
Chair：Prof. Hai-Bin Luo, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University
Time： Monday, June 30, 2014, 15:10 p.m.
Venue：112 Meeting Room, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, East Campus, SYSU
Introduction to the speaker:
Dr. Chang-Guo Zhan, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy, University of Kentucky, is an internationally-recognized leader in computational drug design and discovery with a track record of cross-disciplinary leadership, innovation, and productivity. He also serves as Director of the newly established Molecular Modeling and Biopharmaceutical Center at University of Kentucky. He has served as Chair of Computational Drug Design Focus Group of AAPS. He has also served on the AAPS National Biotechnology Conference (NBC) Program Committee and AAPS Fellow Selection Committee.
With one of the largest research groups in the United States, Dr. Zhan’s main research focus is drug design, discovery, and development through integrated computational-experimental studies. Drugs designed and discovered in Dr. Zhan’s lab are either small molecules (as inhibitors of enzymes or agonists/antagonists of receptor proteins or DNA-binding molecules etc.) or engineered proteins (mutants with significantly improved biological functions and/or increased circulation time in the body). With a research activity ranging from basic sciences to practical applications, he has published ~300 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and has had ~30 patents. Dr. Zhan has developed new computational algorithms used to understand structures, properties, and mechanisms of potential drug molecules interacting with their targets in solution. He has further developed novel, reliable and efficient computational design approaches, including the virtual screening of transition states, in structure-and-mechanism-based computational drug design and discovery. Using the virtual screening of transition states approach which he pioneered, Dr. Zhan has demonstrated its value by making a breakthrough in design and discovery of highly efficient cocaine hydrolases leading to novel, promising therapeutic candidates for treatment of cocaine overdose and abuse. Two of the therapeutic protein candidates are currently in human clinical trials Phase II in humans.
His research is well-funded by the NIH, NSF, DoD, and other funding agencies. In particular, the work in Dr. Zhan’s lab has won 2014 AAPS Innovation in Biotechnology Award. Dr. Zhan is also a winner of 2005 Emerging Computational Technology Prize, American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Computers in Chemistry. Dr. Zhan was elected as Fellow of AAPS in 2010.
All are welcome to the lecture!
