Fighting Cancer Is Among Medical Science\'s Greatest

Fighting cancer is among medical science's greatest challenges and it is to this field of specialty I have been drawn. For the past several years I have devoted my time and energies to laboratory research projects involving the synthesis of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. HDAC inhibitors have emerged as one of the most promising chemical agents in counteracting cancer. Our goal for the past year has been to synthesize a new HDAC inhibitor. Our research was based on prior research and we are endeavoring to add to the growing body of scientific literature in this area. My work involves the synthesis, purification, characterization, and submission of the chemical compounds for biological screening or in vivo tests. Our research team successfully synthesized several new compounds of hydroxymic acid. We also developed a benzamide compound that is now known as MS-275, which was patented by Merck. Synthesizing MS-275 was one of the highlights of my career so far. Quite by accident I discovered that I can skip turning the carboxyl acid group into acid chloride for a far higher isolated yield of MS-275. The results of my study were promising, as they increased yield to 65% from 53%. I look forward to further breakthroughs in compound synthesis.

Prior to my full-time medical research work I was involved in Pfizer's file enrichment program, developing process chemistry methods. Our research team conducted platform chemistry reactions including high-throughput library synthesis and parallel synthesis of small drug-like compounds. In a similar vein, as assistant to the senior scientist of the project, I selected regeant monomers and evaluated optimized conditions for chemistry library protocols.