Department of Materials Science and Engineering Spring Seminar Series: Kent Stewart

Description

Kent Stewart, a faculty member and interim chair of the Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Science at High Point University, will give a talk titled "Molecular Interactions: A Drug Designer's Perspective" for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

After receiving early training in organic chemistry and biochemistry, Stewart worked for most of his career in the pharmaceutical industry (mainly at Abbott in Chicago) at the front line of designing organic compounds for a variety of medical uses. His expertise is computer-aided drug design. He currently is giving back to the next generation of medical professionals in the Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy at High Point University in North Carolina.

In this presentation, Stewart will summarize the kinds of intermolecular interactions that occur between drug and receptor: hydrophobic, H-bond, electrostatic, pi-stack, cation-pi, halogen bonds, metal interactions, etc. Importantly, a sense of the quantitative magnitude of what researchers should expect will be presented and illustrated with specific cases of drug design. While the bulk of the presentation will deal with protein-based receptors, extension to membranes and other assemblies will be included where possible. The seminar will serve as a teaching review of intermolecular forces of which all researchers should be aware.

Students at Johns Hopkins will be interested to know that Stewart was a lab partner of Professor Howard Katz at a time long ago in a land far away, illustrating that professional connections made now can be important for decades to come.