Keynote Speaker
Distinguished Professor Bill Gerwick
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Keynote Address Abstract:
Multidisciplinary marine biomedical research in the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Scripps Institution of Oceanography brings together students and researchers from diverse backgrounds, including pharmaceutical sciences, chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, and microbiology. The major focus of these studies is the discovery of new anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory or neurotoxic compounds from marine algae, with a special emphasis on blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). Additionally, through studies of how these unique molecules are being formed, we are gaining insight into how to manipulate these biosynthetic pathways using genetic engineering so as to create molecules of increased potency and specificity, and in large volume from culture.
Speaker Bio
William H. Gerwick grew up in Oakland, California and received his B.S. in Biochemistry at UC Davis (1976). He did undergraduate research with the late Dr. Norma Lang in the Botany Department, supported by a President’s Undergraduate Fellowship, which resulted in his first scientific publication “Iridescence in Iridaea” in the Journal of Phycology (1977). He subsequently received his Ph.D. in Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Bill Fenical, 1981), did postdoctoral studies at the University of Connecticut (Steven Gould, 1981–82), was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico (1982–84) and then moved to the College of Pharmacy, Oregon State University (1984–2005) as Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2005 he moved to become Professor of Oceanography and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UC San Diego, and in 2011 was promoted to Distinguished Professor. Gerwick has received a number of honors, including President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (2002); American Society of Pharmacognosy, Farnsworth Research Achievement Award, presented at Copenhagen, Denmark (2016); co-Chair of the US-China Summit on Marine Biotechnology in 2014 and 2018; recipient of the Scheuer Award in Marine Natural Products Science presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Marine Natural Products, March 2018; and is a Society Fellow of the American Society of Pharmacognosy and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research group has published over 370 peer-reviewed manuscripts in a multitude of journals over the past 35 years. He has trained over 40 PhD students, 10 MS students, more than 100 undergraduate researchers, and 50 postdoctoral researchers from around the world during his 36 year independent academic career.
Dr. Gerwick’s research focuses on exploring the unique natural products of marine algae and cyanobacteria for useful biomedical properties. These chemically prolific organisms are sources of numerous highly unusual metabolites, and the Gerwick group has been involved in their discovery and evaluation in the areas of cancer, inflammation, infectious disease including tropical diseases such as malaria, Chagas’ disease and leishmaniasis, neurochemical pathways, as well as agricultural uses. From macrophytic algae, his group did pioneering work to discover that these life forms not only make polyunsaturated fatty acids, but also metabolize to intriguing structures related to the prostaglandins and other bioactive lipids. In recent years, his group has focused on tropical filamentous marine cyanobacteria, uncovering that they are extraordinarily rich in diverse nitrogen containing lipids. The Gerwick group has also examined the pathways of biosynthesis of many of the compounds they have discovered over the years, and pioneered the characterization of their origins at the molecular genetic and genomic levels. His group has also contributed to the development of novel analytical technologies for accelerating the pace of natural products research, such as several widely utilized NMR pulse sequences (e.g. the HSQMBC), the MS2-based method of Molecular Networks and a new Artificial Intelligence approach to recognizing NMR spectra known as Small Molecular Artificial Recognition Technology (SMART).