Dr. Thomas R. Pettus has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Chemistry. Dr. Pettus received the doctoral degree from the University of Rochester under the supervision of Professor R. H. Schlessinger. Dr. Pettus will continue research at Columbia University under the sponsorship of Professor S. J. Danishefsky. The postdoctoral research will focus on the synthesis and biological study of a new class of microtubule stabilizing agents, the epothilones. The molecular structure of epothilones, which resembles that of the macrolide antibiotics, is more amenable to chemical manipulation than the structure of taxol, which is known to arrest normal microtubule polymerization. The research contributes to the longterm goal of new synthetic methods that mimic through chemical means the topological constraints present in an enzyme active site. 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.
