William L. Jorgensen Research Group

James Briggs (Purdue, Ph.D.) was named Leader of the Division of Biochemistry at the University of Houston, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Biology and Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Departments.  He is also a member of the Molecular Structure and Function D (MSFD) NIH study section (2007-2010).

Erin Duffy (Yale, Ph.D.) has recently been promoted to Vice President, Structure-Based Drug Discovery, at Rib-x Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  

Antonio Frontera (Yale, Postdoc) is now a Professor of Chemistry at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, Majorca (Baleares) Spain.  He is also currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Open Chemical Physics Journal by Bentham Science Publishers.

Frank van Veggel (Visiting Professor) recently had his Canada Research Chair renewed for another five years, an achievement accompanied by a five year grant and an infrastructure investment.

George Kaminski (Yale, Ph.D.) received the Hewlett-Packard
Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, which recognizes exceptional work in computational chemistry and cheminformatics, from the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the most recent ACS National Meeting in Chicago.  He is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Central Michigan University.

Laura L. Thomas (Yale, Current Ph.D.) was awarded the CCG Excellence Award from Chemical Computing Group and the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the 233rd ACS National Meeting in Chicago for her research presentation entitled “Monte Carlo Investigations of Fundamental Properties of Organic Molecules in the Gas and Liquid Phases”.

Birgit (Biggi) Albrecht (Yale, Current Postdoc) has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department at Loyola College in Baltimore, MD.

Ivan Tubert-Brohman (Yale, Ph.D.) started a two-year postdoc at the University of Basel with Professor Markus Meuwly, funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship. He will be simulating transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation reactions.

Sara E. Nichols (Yale, Current Ph.D.) was awarded the CCG Excellence Award from Chemical Computing Group and the Division of Computers in Chemistry at the 232nd ACS National Meeting in San Francisco for her research presentation entitled “Shrinking Residues for Enhanced Monte Carlo Sampling for Proteins”.

Birgit (Biggi) Albrecht (Yale, Current Postdoc) and Brian Ray wed on October 7, 2006.  Congratulations!

David Maxwell (Yale, Ph.D.) recently attended the Society for Molecular Imaging meeting in Hawaii, where he was author/co-author of several posters ranging in subject from the in-silico design of thymidine kinase substrates to the analysis of spheroids. He is currently working on the design of several kinase inhibitors as part of the Leukemia SPORE project, and the success towards a c-Kit compound was recently described at the 14th Annual SPORE Investigators’ Workshop in Baltimore, MD.

Steven Wesolowski (Yale, Postdoc) was promoted to Senior Scientist at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals this year. He has also taken on the position of Group Leader, and as such, oversees the research of several Ph.D. -level computational chemists.

Jim Blake (Purdue, Ph.D.) and Ellen Laird (Purdue, Ph.D.) recently got married in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

David Maxwell (Yale, Ph.D.) and his wife Jenna welcomed their third child, Kimberly, on January 6, 2006.  Kimberly is sister to Jonathan, who has just entered Kindergarten, and Amanda, who is now in 4th grade.

Orlando Acevedo (Yale, Postdoc) has recently begun working as an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at Auburn University.

James M. Briggs (Purdue, Ph.D.) has been selected as the Leader of the Division of Biochemistry for the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston, Houston TX. He is also the Director of the Chemical Biology Interdisciplinary Program for the Departments of Chemistry and Biology and Biochemistry. Additionally, Professor Briggs holds the offices of Co-founder, Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer for VisiGen Biotechnologies, Inc., Houston, TX.

Mark G. Bures (Purdue, Ph.D.) currently works as a Principal Research Scientist in Computational Chemistry at Lilly Research Labs and is now also a “six sigma black belt.” In this new role, Dr. Bures leads company-wide projects aimed at increasing productivity and at reducing the time and cost of drug discovery and development.

Heather A. Carlson (Yale, Ph.D.) has recently received tenure as an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Professor Carlson has also been awarded the 2006 Wiley-International Journal of Quantum Chemistry Young Investigator Award and a 2006 NSF CAREER Award.

Michael E. Cournoyer (Purdue, Ph.D.) received the 2006 Department of Energy P2 (Pollution Prevention) Award for his work on “Statistical Analysis of Glovebox Glove Failures” at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Patrick S. Lee (Yale, Postdoc) is currently working as a Scientist I in Computational Chemistry for SGX Pharmaceuticals, a public biotech company based in San Diego, CA. The company has just recently gone public and has signed a deal with Novartis for work on AbI inhibitors.

Ivan Tubert-Brohman (Yale, Ph.D.) has begun a postdoctoral position with Professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik at Harvard University.

Frank van Veggel (Visiting Professor) was promoted to Full Professor in Chemistry at the University of Victoria Department of Chemistry, Victoria, British Columbia, in July 2005.

Heather A. Carlson (Yale, Ph.D.) just recently welcomed a son, Jacob Carlson Kirchhoff.

This site will be regularly updated with current member and alumni news. If you have anything interesting to share with the group, please contact Laura at laura.thomas@yale.edu or Paty at patricia.moralesdetirado@yale.edu.

Thanks,

Laura