Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design

Biography

Daniel Becker earned his PhD at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Searle, Pharmacia, and then Pfizer as a Project Leader and Research Fellow developing new treatments for cancer, arthritis, and cardiovascular diseases. He moved from industry to join Loyola University Chicago in 2004 where he serves as a full Professor of Chemistry performing research in synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry, especially in the discovery of new antibiotics and treatments for cancer, as well as in supramolecular chemistry. He has published more than 50 scientific papers in various areas of chemistry and is an inventor on over 50 U.S. patents.

Research Interest

Our research is focused on the design and synthesis of metalloenzyme inhibitors and also of serine protease and serine hydrolase inhibitors with antibiotic properties. In addition, we are interested in the synthesis and conformational dynamics of supramolecular scaffolds related to cyclotriveratrylene (CTV) with applications in host-guest chemistry. Other active research areas involve synthetic methodology including cascade reactions and metal-catalyzed functionalization reactions.