Dr. James P. Morken has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Chemistry. Dr. Morken received his doctoral degree from Boston College under the supervision of Professor Amir Hoveyda. Dr. Morken will continue research at Harvard University under the sponsorship of Professor Stuart Schreiber. His postdoctoral research will apply the techniques of modern combinatorial chemistry to the development of a general method for increasing the affinity of non-peptidic ligands for their natural receptors. By attaching the ligand to a combinatorial peptide library, followed by screening the library for binding to the target protein, it should be possible to identify sequences that establish reinforcing non-covalent interactions between ligand and receptor. The Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Chemistry Program is viewed as an important infrastructural program designed to broaden the knowledge and experience of new Ph. D.s and attract them into meaningful careers in contemporary chemical research and teaching.
