Scientific Advisors

Donald E. Bergstrom, Ph.D.

Dr. Bergstrom is Walther Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Purdue University. His research focus is on the medicinal and bioorganic chemistry of nucleic acids and their component bases. Dr. Bergstrom has contributed greatly to our understanding of the molecular interactions of substrate nucleotides and DNA polymerases and has created a new set of tools consisting of unnatural nucleic acid components useful for studying DNA replication. He is also currently investigating the incorporation of a series of modified nucleosides into DNA primers, and then using these primers in PCR DNA replication experiments to determine the coding properties of the modified nucleosides. Recognition by these analogues provides detailed insight into the mechanism of DNA replication of polymerases. More recently he has begun an investigation of a related set of ribonucleoside analogs to study RNA polymerases. Dr. Bergstrom received his Ph.D. in synthetic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and did his postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois. He has had faculty appointments at the University of California at Davis and University of North Dakota. He is a member of the editorial board of Nucleosides and Nucleotides, the editorial board of Bioconjugate Chemistry and the editor of Current Protocols in Nucleic Acid Chemistry. Dr. Bergstrom has been issued nine US patents and has authored numerous scientific publications on the synthesis and properties of nucleoside analogs.

John M. Essigmann, Ph.D.

Dr. Essigmann received his Ph.D. and did his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Essigmann is Professor of Toxicology and Chemistry at MIT. He has served as chairman of the Gordon Conference on Mutagenesis and his research is supported by an Outstanding Investigator Grant from the NIH. Dr. Essigmann has authored or coauthored numerous publications on DNA damaging agents and DNA repair.

Courtney Fletcher, Pharm. D.

Dr. Fletcher is Dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center School of Pharmacy. He has served as professor and director of the Antiviral Pharmacology Laboratory at University of Colorado. For more than two decades, Dr. Fletcher has focused his research and practice toward the pharmacology of antiviral agents. He is considered one of the leading experts in the clinical pharmacology of nucleosides developed for the treatment of HIV. Dr. Fletcher has authored or co-authored more than 110 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and more than 140 research papers for presentation at national and international scientific meetings. Dr. Fletcher is presently a member of the Department of Health and Human Services' Panel on Clinical Practices for the Treatment of HIV Infection. He is a past member of the NIH's AIDS Discovery and Development of Therapeutics Study Section as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Antiviral Drug Advisory Committee.

Lawrence A. Loeb, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Loeb received his M.D. from New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is professor in the Department of Pathology, Director of the Gottstein Cancer Research Laboratory and Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. In addition, Dr. Loeb is the Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (M.D./Ph.D.) at the University of Washington. He was past president of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Environmental Mutagen Society and was the recipient of an Outstanding Investigator Grant from NIH. Dr. Loeb has authored or co-authored 285 publications, including publications on HIV RT.

James I. Mullins, Ph.D.

Dr. Mullins has been actively involved in the study of lentiviruses since 1980 and is a world authority in the study of HIV evolution during the course of infection. Dr. Mullins discovered the successful vaccine to protect against the feline leukemia retrovirus FeLV. His lab developed the heteroduplex mobility assay (HMA) that has been used worldwide to track the molecular epidemiology of HIV. Dr. Mullins is a recipient of Massachusetts Governor's Recognition Award for Outstanding Contributions to AIDS Research and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He is the director of the Genomics core of the University of Washington-Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and is director and principle investigator for the Seattle Primary Infection Program (SEAPiP). He obtained his Ph.D. in cell biology and biochemistry from the University of Minnesota. Research in Dr. Mullins' laboratory assists the fight against AIDS by seeking insight into the development of the disease in order to refine therapies and create effective vaccines. By relating the use of the techniques of molecular, computational and in vitro virus biology to in vivo analyses of biological activity conducted by collaborating laboratories, his lab has focused on events relevant to the HIV-human host relationship, disease induction and progression. Specifically, the lab is defining characteristics of HIV genomic variants associated with tissue, fluid and cell type compartmentalization, and linking these to studies of virus transmission and the kinetics and manifestations of disease. Links between cellular and humoral immune responses and HIV genetic variation and variant proliferation within infected individuals are being investigated. His lab is also investigating improved methods to generate of effective AIDS vaccine antigens.