Chemist Kim D. Janda honored with ACS Portoghese Lectureship Award
July 26, 2019
LA JOLLA, CA – The Medicinal Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), along with the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, has given the 2019 Philip S. Portoghese Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship Award to Kim Janda, PhD. The lectureship honors Janda, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research, for his many contributions to medicinal chemistry research.
“It’s a privilege to receive this award,” says Janda, “and to join my esteemed colleagues who have likewise been recognized for their medicinal chemistry research with the Portoghese Lectureship.”
The award is named in honor of chemist Phil Portoghese, PhD, a distinguished professor at University of Minnesota who served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry from 1972 to 2011. Janda says he’s particularly gratified to receive this award because Portoghese is a pioneer in the field of opioid receptor targeting, which is one of Janda’s primary research efforts.
In recent months, Janda and his laboratory team have made significant advances in devising potential treatments for a number of serious health conditions, including synthetic opioid overdose. Working in rodent models and non-human primates, the Janda team developed a first-ever monoclonal antibody that mitigates the effects of fentanyl and carfentanil, and overcomes shortfalls of existing treatments for people who overdose on these extremely powerful opioids. The team also designed an experimental dual vaccine for treating substance use disorders against both heroin and fentanyl. Remarkably, this combination vaccine produced months-long efficacy in rodent models, addressing the crippling addictive properties of these opioids.
In separate research focused on a neglected tropical disease that afflicts 18 to 120 million people worldwide, Janda and his team created a urine diagnostic dipstick to detect the parasitic worms that cause onchocerciasis, better known as river blindness, which has been licensed to IVD Research for commercialization.
Janda holds a doctoral degree in organic and medicinal chemistry from the University of Arizona and is also a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. He will receive his Portoghese Lectureship Award at the ACS national meeting and expo in San Diego on August 25-29.
Dale Boger, PhD, another prominent chemistry professor at Scripps Research, received the Portoghese Lectureship Award in 2011.
For more information, contact press@scripps.edu