Biological and Medicinal Chemistry 2026 Lectureship and Award Winners

Winner: Dr. Laura M. K. Dassama, Stanford University (USA)

Dr. Dassama is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford, and an Institute Scholar at Sarafan ChEM‑H. Her research centers on disabling pathogenic bacteria using chemistry, biophysics, and data science.

She holds a BS from Temple University and a PhD from Penn State, followed by postdoctoral work at Northwestern and a visiting scientist role at Boston Children’s Hospital. Since starting her lab at Stanford in 2018, her group has identified new protein targets involved in pathogen lipid acquisition.

Winner: Dr. Daniel L. Hurdiss, Utrecht University (Netherlands)

Dr. Hurdiss is an Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Health Sciences at Utrecht University. Trained in structural biology during his Wellcome Trust–funded PhD at Leeds, he used cryo‑EM to study non‑enveloped viruses, earning the Kendrew Prize and VC Jordan/PR Radford Thesis Prize. He later received Marie Skłodowska‑Curie and EMBO fellowships to investigate picornaviral AAA+ ATPases.

Since 2021, he has led an independent group focused on positive‑strand RNA virus entry, replication, and assembly, contributing to antiviral target discovery. He played a key role in IMI CARE’s SARS‑CoV‑2 structural biology efforts and advanced coronavirus spike research. His work has been recognized with the Beijerinck Premium, Van Leeuwenhoek Award, Kluyver Award, and selection as a 2025 EMBO Young Investigator.

Winner: Dr. Patrick T. Dolan, National Institutes of Health (USA)

Dr. Dolan is an experimental virologist and computational biologist whose work focuses primarily on the evolution and host-virus interactions of positive-sense RNA viruses.

He earned his B.S. degree in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Michigan State University, where he worked in the laboratory of Professor Yong-Hui Zheng on the antiviral function of APOBEC3 cytidine deaminases in HIV-1. He earned his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences in 2014 from Purdue University, where he studied the form and function of the hepatitis C virus-host protein interaction network under the supervision of Professor Douglas J. LaCount and co-advisor Professor Michael Gribskov. He then pursued postdoctoral studies at Stanford University and University of California, San Francisco, in the laboratories of Professors Raul Andino and Judith Frydman where he developed methods to understand the evolutionary dynamics of enteroviruses and flaviviruses in alternative host environments.

In 2021, Dr. Dolan began as Earl Stadtman Investigator and Unit Chief of the Quantitative Virology and Evolution Unit at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease Division of Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, where his group studies the biological and biophysical forces that shape the long- and short-term evolution of RNA virus populations.

View Previous Winners — ACS Infectious Diseases Early Career Award:
2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020

Winner: Dr. Alison Axtman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)

Dr. Axtman is an Assistant Professor and Maureen Daly Blouin Distinguished Fellow at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as Principal Investigator of Medicinal Chemistry for UNC's Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC‑UNC). A highly experienced synthetic medical chemist, Dr. Axtman works at the interface of chemistry and biology and is dedicated to carrying out the basic research that will ultimately lead to new therapies for diverse diseases. Her research training has focused on the synthesis of small molecules that selectively modulate proteins implicated in disease-propagating pathways. To drive medicinal chemistry optimization, her lab has also developed small molecule tracers that enable cell-based assays.

She is a core scientist within SGC-UNC, an interdisciplinary team of researchers that designs and shares strategic compound sets and performs iterative medicinal chemistry to turn promising chemical starting points into selective chemical probes and/or bifunctional molecules. These compounds are shared openly with the scientific community to facilitate disease-relevant advances.

Winner: Dr. Fleur Ferguson, University of California San Diego (USA)

Dr. Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in UC San Diego's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, where she leads a research group focused on developing next-generation proximity-pharmacology technology platforms. Her laboratory integrates chemical synthesis, mass spectrometry, and cell biology to create therapeutic strategies for diseases where conventional approaches have failed.

Ferguson received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, advised by Professors Chris Abell and Alessio Ciulli, and completed postdoctoral research with Professor Nathanael Gray at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Her innovative work in chemical biology has been recognized with major awards including the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER, International Chemical Biology Society Young Chemical Biologist Award, Pew Biomedical Research Scholar Award, and early career honors from multiple foundations.

View Previous Winners — Philip S. Portoghese Early Career Award for the Advancement of Medicinal Chemistry: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022

Winner: Dr. Christopher Parker, Scripps Research (USA)

Dr. Parker is the Abide‑Vividion Chair of Chemistry & Chemical Biology and a Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research. He earned his B.Sc. from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D. from Yale University, where he developed bifunctional molecules that recruit endogenous antibodies for targeted immune clearance. After postdoctoral work with Ben Cravatt at Scripps—integrating fragment‑based ligand discovery with chemical proteomics, he launched his independent lab in 2018 and became a tenured full Professor in 2024. His honors include a DoD CDRMP New Investigator Award, a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Exploratory Cell Network Award, and he is a co‑founder of Belharra Therapeutics.

The Parker Lab focuses on chemistry‑driven approaches to understanding human biology in therapeutic contexts. Their work centers on chemical proteomics to map small‑molecule‑accessible proteins directly in cells and to translate these insights into functional chemical probes for targets central to human health and disease.

View Previous Winners — ACS Chemical Biology Early Career Award & ACS Chemical Biology Lectureship Award: 2025, 2022, 2021, 2020

Winner: Dr. Xinyuan Fan, Beijing Normal University (China)

Dr. Fan is a Professor at Beijing Normal University and was formerly a research Associate Professor at Peking University. He developed bioorthogonal photocatalysis, a chemical strategy that utilizes catalysts for spatial targeting and external light for temporal resolution within living systems. Building upon this framework, his group established the CAT-X platform, a versatile system comprising 12 distinct technologies such as CAT-Prox, CAT-seq, and CAT-Lyso. The platform currently encompasses three primary research frontiers: subcellular multi-omics within organelles such as lysosomes that are inaccessible to traditional genetic methods; cross-scale analysis of molecular and cell-cell interactions; and the development of precision therapeutics through controllable drug activation. By providing these capabilities in hard-to-transfect cells and intact tissues, his work effectively overcomes the inherent limitations of conventional enzymatic approaches. This research provides a robust chemical toolkit to decipher the spatiotemporal molecular mechanisms of life and to advance the development of precision medicine.

View Previous Winners — Bioconjugate Chemistry Early Career Award & Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship Award: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

Molecular Pharmaceutics Early Career Best Paper Award

Sponsored by Molecular Pharmaceutics, this award is presented to three early-career scientists, one each from three major geographic regions: the Americas, Europe/the Middle East/Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Stay informed about upcoming nomination opportunities

Bookmark the post below and check back throughout the year for the latest news and announcements about nominations for future Biological and Medicinal Chemistry lectureships and awards.