ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering various aspects of medicinal chemistry. It was established in 2010 and publishes articles spanning a broad range of subjects including compound design, optimization and biological evaluation of drug delivery and imaging agents, and the pharmacology of small and large bioactive molecules.
In 2019, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters launched the Early Career Board (ECB) as a new initiative to provide opportunities to early-career researchers to work alongside editorial board members. In January 2024, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters appointed a new dynamic group of enthusiastic early-career scientists to the ECB who are actively contributing to shaping the medicinal chemistry community. Because diversity fuels innovation by leveraging unique perspectives and experiences, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters has assembled the ECB ensuring representation of different research areas, talents, culture, geographies, and employment in industry and academia (Table 1). The ECB members act as advocates for the journal, actively shaping its growth. This is achieved by contributing content, actively soliciting submissions for thematic collections such as Virtual Special Issues or Collections, assisting in promoting journal content, and authoring “In this Issue” features that appear at the beginning of each issue of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. The ECB also has the freedom and flexibility to lead initiatives that will strengthen the medicinal chemistry community and broaden the journal’s impact and outreach. Serving on the ECB fosters the professional growth of early-career scientists and represents a key step in their career progression. Being part of the ECB provides an opportunity to contribute to the advancement of knowledge and research in the field of medicinal chemistry working with other early career scientists from around the world. The ECB is composed of a chair, vice-chair, and six members (Table 1) who will serve in this role for a two-year period.
Table 1. Names, Affiliation, and Roles of the ECB Members.
| Name | Affiliation | Country | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Riley | University of Illinois Chicago | United States | Chair |
| Chiara Borsari | University of Milan | Italy | Vice-Chair |
| Aleksandra Baranczak | Blackbird Laboratories | United States | Member |
| Simone Bigi-Botterill | Exscientia AI | United States | Member |
| Amanda Dombrowski | AbbVie | United States | Member |
| Michelle Estrada | AbbVie | United States | Member |
| Mark Farrell | University of Kansas | United States | Member |
| John Woodland | University of Cape Town | South Africa | Member |
Meet the ECB Team
Andrew Riley is an assistant
professor at the University
of Illinois Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas
working with Dr. Thomas Prisinzano on the design and synthesis of
opioid ligands derived from salvinorin A.
Following his graduate studies, Andrew joined the Hergenrother
group at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign as a postdoctoral
researcher and helped develop and implement new rules for small-molecule
accumulation in Gram-negative bacteria. In 2018, he joined the Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UIC, where his lab investigates natural
products involved in pain and addiction.
“I look forward to working with the Early Career Board to build upon the many successes of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, and I am honored to serve as the chair of this talented group. Additionally, as the mentor of a young but growing academic research group, I hope to share the unique perspective of the next generations of medicinal chemists.”
Chiara Borsari is a tenure-track Assistant Professor
of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Milan (Italy), Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
She obtained her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy) in 2017. During her
Ph.D., two fellowships allowed her to join the National Hellenic Research
Foundation in Athens (Greece) and the State University of New York
at Albany (USA). For 5 years, she was a postdoctoral research fellow
at the University of Basel (Switzerland), Department of Biomedicine.
In September 2022, she started her independent career at the University
of Milan, and in October 2023, she was promoted Tenure-Track Assistant
Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. Her main research focus is the development
of innovative chemical strategies for the treatment of cancer and
parasitic diseases. Her work in the field of oncology received funding
from L’Oréal UNESCO for Women in Science, Umberto Veronesi
Foundation and Guido Berlucchi Foundation. She is also the Chair of
the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Young Scientists Network (EFMC-YSN).
“I am thrilled to be a part of the ACS Med Chem Letters Early Career Board and I’m looking forward to collaborating with this outstanding international team of early-career scientists and the editorial board to shape the future of the journal. I hope to contribute to identify and highlight important research advances and emerging themes, serving the global medicinal chemistry community.”
Aleks Baranczak is the Chief Program Officer
at the
life sciences accelerator Blackbird Laboratories dedicated to helping
universities and investigators commercialize their academic research.
In her role, she leads research development, program, and
partnership management efforts. Before joining Blackbird, Aleks was
with Calibr, a drug discovery division of Scripps Research, where
she oversaw a portfolio of preclinical programs and was responsible
for the management of partnerships with biotech and pharmaceutical
companies. Previously, Aleks worked as a scientist and group leader
at AbbVie, later joining the University of Chicago where she managed
initiatives leading to the creation of multi-institutional research
centers and institutes. Aleks earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry
in the laboratory of Prof. Gary Sulikowski at Vanderbilt University.
She later conducted postdoctoral work in chemical biology in the laboratory
of Prof. Jeff Kelly at The Scripps Research Institute.
“I am thrilled to join the ACS Med Chem Letters Early Career Board. With the experience of working at the intersection of academic and industry drug discovery research, I hope to contribute by bringing voices and perspectives discussing transformative science, and the opportunities and challenges around translating those innovative ideas into therapeutics products.”
Simone
Bigi-Botterill is Associate Director of Small
Molecule Design at Exscientia AI. She explains, “At Exscientia,
we leverage artificial intelligence for every phase of discovery—from
target identification to actually designing the molecules to clinical
trial management.”
She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University
of Notre Dame and her MAS in Clinical Research from the University
of California, San Diego. Her thesis focused on identifying a TBK1
gene signature in nonresponding psoriatic patients to adalimumab.
She spent 10 years at Takeda as a medicinal chemist with a heavy emphasis
on computational chemistry and structure-based drug design. She has
worked across target class and therapeutic area spanning Hit ID to
delivery of assets for candidate nomination.
“I take great pride in this opportunity of joining the ECB of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters and shaping its content over the next two years. I am surrounded by top level talent spanning industry, academia, and the world, that has such enthusiasm for delivering life-altering therapeutics.”
Amanda Dombrowski is a Principal Research Scientist
at AbbVie. She received her B.A. (2007) in Chemistry from Goucher
College and her Ph.D. (2012) in Organic Chemistry from Boston College.
Metal catalysis and organocatalysis method development
were the focus of her doctoral work with Kian Tan while her postdoctoral
research (2012) centered on biomaterials development at Northwestern
University with Samuel Stupp. Since joining Abbvie and the Advanced
Chemistry Technologies group in 2015, she has investigated methods
for parallel synthesis, helped develop the technology for and implemented
the high throughput experimentation platform, as well as contributing
to several medicinal chemistry programs.
“I am honored to be part of the ACS Med Chem Lett Early Career Board. The Early Career board is critical to ensuring that the journal stays in touch with the many viewpoints and experiences of the authors and readership. I intend to use my years of experience in medicinal chemistry and chemistry technology to enrich the content of the journal. I look forward to working closely with the other board members to enhance the quality of the journal by highlighting exciting new science and trends in the field.”
Michelle Estrada is currently a Senior Scientist at
AbbVie, where she is part of the Targeted Protein Degradation Platform
Team.
Michelle obtained her Ph.D. from Colorado State University
under the direction of Prof. Robert Williams, where she focused on
natural product synthesis. While at CSU Michelle was the recipient
of the NSF Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship and the recipient of
the BMS Minority Chemistry Program Graduate Fellowship. After defending
her thesis, she joined Jeffery Winkler’s group at the University
of Pennsylvania in 2014 as the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow
for Academic Diversity. Upon fellowship completion, Michelle accepted
a Scientist position in Medicinal Chemistry at Peloton Therapeutics
where she was focused on small molecule drug discovery. In 2019 Michelle
moved to the greater Chicago area to join AbbVie. Her current focus
is on finding novel chemical matter in the targeted protein degradation
(TPD) space using various strategies including FBDD, DEL/HTS screens
and SBDD. She enjoys applying her skills as a traditionally trained
synthetic chemist to solve interesting new problems for novel modalities.
Outside of the lab, she loves fishing for King Salmon and Trout in
Lake Michigan.
“I am excited to be part of the ACS Med Chem Letters Early Career board. Working with a diverse group of scientists across academia and industry is a unique opportunity to bring novel perspectives and ideas to the forefront of our field. I am looking forward to joining this team of talented scientists, serving the medicinal chemistry community, and engaging the next generation of chemists in drug discovery.”
Mark P. Farrell received his B.Sc. and Ph.D.
from
the University of Galway, Ireland. His Ph.D. research was carried
out under the tutelage of Prof. Paul V. Murphy and focused on glycosyl
bond anomerization.
Subsequently, he joined the laboratory of Prof. Amos B.
Smith III at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed new
reaction methods and HIV-1 entry inhibitors. In 2017, he joined the
Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas, where
he is currently an Associate Professor. The Farrell lab studies carbohydrate–protein
interactions and develops molecular strategies to leverage the immune
system’s potential to treat cancer and infectious diseases.
“It is a great honor to be a member of the ACS Med Chem Letters Early Career Board and to be part of a talented group with a breadth of experience that wants to positively contribute to the Medicinal Chemistry community. I look forward to expanding the reach of ACS Med Chem Letters and to providing perspectives on some of the cutting-edge science being published in this journal.”
John Woodland is a research officer at the University
of Cape Town (UCT)’s Holistic Drug Discovery and Development
(H3D) Centre, the first integrated drug discovery centre in Africa.
After obtaining his Ph.D. in chemistry from UCT in 2016,
John spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the UCT Department
of Molecular and Cell Biology investigating the intersection of HIV,
hormonal contraceptives and antiretrovirals. This was followed by
a second postdoctoral fellowship as a medicinal chemist at the H3D
Centre designing and synthesizing potential drug leads for malaria.
Since then, and under the mentorship of Prof. Kelly Chibale, John
has extended his interests in the development of molecular treatments
and tools to tackle the scourge of infectious disease. Active research
projects include mode-of-action studies and target deconvolution of
hit compounds active against the human malaria parasite (Plasmodium
falciparum), the medicinal chemistry optimization of noncovalent
and covalent inhibitors of Plasmodium kinases, and
the integration of machine learning into workflows at the H3D Centre
to reduce compound attrition. John is also a Fellow of the UCT Institute
of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM). His aspiration
is to make a positive contribution to science in South Africa, with
a global impact, in the fields of infectious disease and molecular
medicine through drug discovery research underpinned by chemical biology
and medicinal chemistry. Apart from his research activities, John
is passionate about promoting science and improving scientific literacy
in South Africa. He is also active as a musician in Cape Town and
plays the organ, directs his own choral group, and presents weekly
broadcasts on a local classical music radio station.
“I am delighted to join the ECB of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters which aims to grow the quality and impact of submissions to the journal. In particular, I hope to encourage submissions from more diverse geographies, especially from African research groups, to ensure that our journal features a more equitable representation of scientists from around the globe, amplifying voices from underrepresented groups. Being part of the ECB is an important way of giving back to the scientific community, and I am thrilled to be working with a team of inspiring and engaged young scientists with broad research interests.”
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS.