Gregory L. Verdine - Biographical Sketch

Gregory L. Verdine
Harvard College Professor
Erving Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Harvard University
12 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Telephone: 617-495-5323
Facsimile: 617-495-8755
verdine@chemistry.harvard.edu

Professor Verdine's research interests lie in the emerging area of chemical biology. He and his co-workers aim to gain a fundamental understanding of processes that control the expression and preserve the integrity of genetic information. His studies have elucidated the molecular mechanisms by which DNA-modifying proteins - especially DNA methyltransferases and DNA repair proteins - recognize and process their substrates. Verdine is the co-discoverer of a key pathway for the repair of oxidatively damaged DNA in higher organisms, including man. His efforts in the area of transcriptional regulation have resulted in the structural characterization of NF-kB (with S. C. Harrison) and the isolation and structural elucidation of the nuclear factor of activated T cells (with A. Rao and G. Wagner, respectively). Recently, he solved a long-standing problem in transcriptional regulation by showing that acidic activation domains undergo induced a-helix formation upon binding to a target TAF protein. He is the first to show that a completely non-natural molecule can co-activate transcription in cells, thus paving the way for the discovery of small molecules that can directly activate the expression of specific genes. For further information, please refer to the Research pages of this website.

*Personal*
Born:	June 10, 1959, Somers Point, New Jersey, USA
*Education*
1982	B.S., Chemistry: St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA (with George Nelson)
1986	Ph.D., Chemistry: Columbia University (with Koji Nakanishi)
1986-1988	NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Molecular Biology: MIT and Harvard Medical School (with Christopher Walsh)
*Honorary*
1986	Hammett Award for Distinguished Research, Columbia University
1986	National Student Award, Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies
1988	Dreyfus Distinguished New Faculty Award
1988	DuPont Young Faculty Fellow, E. I. duPont de Nemours and Co.
1990	Searle Scholar
1990	Eli Lilly Grantee in Chemistry
1991	Alfred P. Sloan Fellow
1991	National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator
1992	Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
1992	Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor, Harvard University
1994	Arthur C. Cope Scholar, American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry
1994	Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Excellence in Chemistry Award
1996	Eli Lilly Award, American Chemical Society Division of Biological Chemistry
2001-2006	Harvard College Professor, Harvard University
2002	Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
*Special Lectureships*
1993	Upjohn Distinguished Lecturer, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
1995	Louis C. Jordy Research Lecturer, Drew University, Madison, NJ
1996	Plenary Lecturer, 7th Annual Symposium on “Frontiers in Chemistry,” Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA
1996	Eli Lilly Award Lecturer, American Chemical Society Division of Biological Chemistry, ACS Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL
1996	Plenary Lecturer, 11th Annual William S. Johnson Symposium, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
1999	Bio-Méga/Boehringer Ingelheim Lecturer, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
1999	Plenary Lecturer, Welch Foundation 43rd Conference on “Synthetic and Biological Chemistry,” Houston, TX
2000	John H. Blaffer Lecturer, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Houston, TX
2001	Alexander M. Cruickshank Lecturer, Gordon Research Conference on Mammalian DNA Repair, Ventura, CA
2001	Keynote Lecturer, “Beyond Genomics: Chemical Biology” Symposium, University of Minnesota, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Minneapolis, MN
2003	Lecturer, President’s Research Seminar Series, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
2003	Lecturer, NCI Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD
*Professional*
1988-1992	Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
1991-1995	Managing Director, Institute of Chemistry in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
1992-1994	Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
1994-2002	Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
1998	Founding Faculty Member, Harvard Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology
2000	Associate Member, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
2001-2006	Harvard College Professor, Harvard University
2002	Erving Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University
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1994-1998	Scientific Advisory Board, Japanese Institute of Physical and Chemical Research(RIKEN), Carbohydrate Chemistry Division
1994-1999	Bioorganic and Natural Products Study Section, National Institutes of Health
1997-	Scientific Advisory Board, Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, Switzerland
1997-1998	Developmental Therapeutics Review Board, National Cancer Institute
1999-	Board of Scientific Counselors, National Cancer Institute
1999-	Searle Scholar Program Advisory Board
2000-	Scientific Advisory Committee, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation
2002-	International Advisory Committee of the New Graduate School in Okinawa, Government of Japan
2003-	Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund, Germany
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1998-	Scientific Advisory Board, Roche Bioscience
1999-	Co-Founder; Chair of Scientific Advisory Board; and Member, Board of Directors; Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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1993-2001	Associate Editor, Chemistry & Biology
1996-	Editorial Board, Current Opinion in Chemical Biology
1996-	Consulting Editor, Biooorganic & Medicinal Chemistry and Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters
1996-	Consulting Editor, Tetrahedron Publications
1998-	Editorial Board, Current Opinion in Anti-inflammatory and Immunomodulatory Drugs
1999-	Editorial Board, Synlett
2000-	Advisory Board, Genome Biology
2001-	Editorial Board, Nucleic Acids Research