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Fraydoon Rastinejad, Ph.D., to Lead New Center for Molecular Design |
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Dr. Fraydoon Rastinejad has been tapped to lead the University of Virginia School of Medicine's new Center for Molecular Design. The Center for Molecular Design will serve as one of the cornerstones for translational research efforts as the School of Medicine works to facilitate drug discovery by bringing together expertise from across the University. Dr. Rastinejad, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics, wants the center will serve a crucial role in the training of graduate students in the field of Chemical Biology as well as serve as a resource for all School of Medicine faculty. "This is a strategic effort to develop molecules which are drug candidates," says Rastinejad. "We have many outstanding scientists who are world leaders. By pooling our efforts and knowledge we will be better able to translate our research from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside." Dr. Rastinejad joined the University of Virginia in 1995. His research involves structural biology as a foundation for understanding the basis for protein-ligand and protein-DNA recognition. His research program emphasizes the nuclear hormone receptors and how hydrophobic molecules related to steroids and hormones act as selective modulators. Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Rastinejad was a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute/National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. |