Vanderbilt University’s Craig Lindsley, Ph.D., has won the 2014 John J. Abel Awardin Pharmacology for young investigators from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).
Lindsley, director of medicinal chemistry and co-director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD) and William K. Warren Jr. Professor of Medicine, was honored for “his fundamental and transforming impact on pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and drug discovery in the fields of neuroscience and cancer biology.”
He is the third Vanderbilt scientist to receive the award, which has been given 67 times since 1947. F. Peter (Fred) Guengerich, Ph.D., won the award in 1984, and Lee Limbird, Ph.D., in 1987.
“This is a tremendous distinction for Dr. Lindsley,” said Susan Wente, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for Research and senior associate dean for Biomedical Sciences.
“He exemplifies core tenets of the institution’s research mission — innovation, leadership and vision, and joins a select group of Vanderbilt faculty previously honored with the ASPET award,” Wente said. “We’re proud to support Dr. Lindsley’s research and congratulate him on this wonderful recognition.”
The award, named for ASPET’s founder, will be presented on April 26 during ASPET’s annual meeting in San Diego. Lindsley’s award lecture, entitled “Exploiting Allosteric Sites for Target Modulation,” will be given April 28.
“Receiving this award is a great honor and a continued testament to the science, environment and amazing colleagues here at Vanderbilt that made this possible,” said Lindsley, also professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry.
Lindsley is widely recognized as a pioneer who brought technology-enabled synthesis to the forefront of drug discovery chemistry.
Using the technology platform he developed, he has discovered and developed high quality novel compounds in multiple therapeutic areas, from cancer to neuroscience, and pioneered the medicinal chemistry of allosteric modulation.
