Our Science – Schnermann Website

Martin J. Schnermann, Ph.D.

Chemical Biology Laboratory Head, Natural Products Chemistry Section Investigator Center for Cancer Research National Cancer Institute Building 376, Room 225D 1050 Boyles Street Frederick, MD 21702 Phone:   301-228-4008 Fax:   301-846-6033 E-Mail:   schnermannmj@mail.nih.gov

Biography

Dr. Schnermann attended Colby College and graduated in 2002 with degrees in Chemistry (honors with Prof. Dasan Thamattoor) and Physics. After a year at Pfizer Research and Development (Groton, CT) as an associate in medicinal chemistry, he moved to the Scripps Research Institute. During his graduate studies, he performed research on the total synthesis and biological evaluation of anticancer natural products with Prof. Dale Boger and obtained a Ph.D. in 2008. He then pursued an NIH-postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine. In 2012, Dr. Schnermann joined the NCI where his research focuses on the development of new organic methods and the application of organic synthesis to uncovering the mechanisms of action of bioactive natural products.

Research

Natural Product Covalent Inhibitors
Many small molecule pharmaceutical agents covalently modify their biological targets. Our research will focus on bioactive natural products where the biological target and mechanism of action remains to be rigorously defined. A multidisciplinary, collaborative approach, involving small molecule synthesis, mechanistic and biochemical studies, and biological characterization, will be employed.

New Methods for the Synthesis of Complex Small Molecules
A second, complementary, focus of our efforts will be to develop new synthetic approaches to complex bioactive natural products and their structural analogs. A particular focus will be to develop new methods that enable complex, but readily available, starting materials to be converted to key intermediates in route to target molecules.

This page was last updated on 11/19/2012.