Department of Chemistry & EID Co-Host Retreat

The Department of Chemistry (COS) and the Emerging & Infectious Diseases Program (CMI) co-hosted a seminar and workshop on June 5, 2018.  Dr. Sid Thakur (Associate Director-EID) and Dr. Joshua Pierce (Lead-Drug Discovery Initiative) led the retreat.  The keynote speaker was Dr. Thomas Prisinzano from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas.

In the morning, Dr. Prisinzano presented a special seminar entitled “Salvia divinorum: A Unique CNS Active Plant”.  Later that afternoon, a select group of CMI faculty met with Dr. Prisinzano in a special workshop to discuss the opportunities for submitting a training grant proposal to the National Institute of Health.   A myriad of topics were discussed including “what would make our training program unique, the best ways to integrate with existing T32 on campus (many faculty have experience with existing T32 grants on campus), what faculty do we have as core trainers for such a grant and what faculty should be involved in this discussion that may not be present?”

The workshop was the next step in planning of the growing collaboration between the Department of Chemistry and the Comparative Medicine Institute-EID in the areas of Chemical Biology and Infectious Disease.