All-Division Colloquium

2024 C. Richard Hutchinson Lecture

• Barry O’Keefe, PhD
• National Cancer Institute

The NCI Program for Natural Product Discovery

Natural products have a proven track record in use as anti-cancer and anti-infective agents. As of 2020 natural products (NP), NP pharmacophores, and NP mimics represented >40% of small molecule-based anti-cancer and anti-microbial drugs. However, accessing the potential of NPs in drug discovery campaigns has been challenging resulting in NP-based libraries often being excluded from screening programs. To address the challenges in screening NPs and encourage increased use of NP chemical diversity, the NCI created a Program for Natural Product Discovery (NPNPD). This presentation will discuss the reasons for, challenges to, and mechanisms by which to increase the pace and efficiency of NP-based drug discovery.

About the Spaker:  Dr. Barry O’Keefe received a BS in Botany from Michigan State University and a PhD in Pharmacognosy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. O’Keefe immediately started post-doctoral research in the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Drug Discovery Research and Development to study novel proteins from natural products extracts; studies he continues as Head of the Protein Chemistry and Molecular Biology Section in the Molecular Targets Program of the NCI Center for Cancer Research. In 2015 Dr. O’Keefe accepted a joint position and was also appointed Chief of the Natural Products Branch, DTP, DCTD, NCI which is responsible for the collection, extraction, pre-fractionation and discovery of bioactive natural products. He was appointed Director of the Molecular Targets Program in the CCR in 2020. Dr. O’Keefe is an inventor on over 50 U.S. and international patents and is an author of over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Hosted by Dean Steven Swanson

The C. Richard Hutchinson Lecture is intended to celebrate and recognize careers dedicated to contemporary research and major advances in natural product discovery and development.  Read more about Dr. C. Richard Hutchinson and view speakers from previous years.