Paul Wender is the Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University, Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology (by courtesy, Stanford Medical School), a cofounder of the Quantitative Chemical Biology Program, a member of the Stanford Molecular Imaging Program, the Bio-X Program, the Program for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Cancer Pharmacology Program, the Cancer Nanotechnology Program, the Molecular Therapeutics Program, and the National Translation Research Initiative. He was also a cofounder, science advisor and board member of CellGate, a biotech company that pioneered new strategies for drug delivery, and has contributed to the founding of two new biotech companies focused on therapeutic leads developed in his laboratories.
His research involves studies in chemistry, biology, medicine, and materials science. His group is interested in the design and mechanism of action of molecules that exhibit unique biological activity and transformative therapeutic potential and in developing fundamentally new ways of synthesizing such compounds with an emphasis on the “Ideal Synthesis”, “step economy”, and “function oriented synthesis and design”. His group has introduced over 25 new reactions including arene-alkene meta photocycloadditions and numerous transition metal-catalyzed cycloadditions (e.g., 3+2, 4+4, 5+2, 6+2, 5+2+1, 2+2+2+2, 5+2+1+1 processes), has completed the first or one of the first total syntheses of numerous major synthetic targets (including phorbol, taxol, resiniferatoxin, bryostatin, etc), and has advanced therapeutic leads and drug delivery systems (e.g., arginine-rich molecular transporters) into human clinical trials. Current research involves synthesis studies with an emphasis on transformative strategies and methods, and novel chemistry driven approaches to imaging, diagnostics, drug delivery, cancer and disease resistance, immunotherapy, HIV/AIDS eradication, and Alzheimer’s disease. The work of his group is described in over 280 publications and approximately 20 issued or pending patents.
Professor Wender is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences. His work and teaching have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, Sloan Fellowship Award, Eli Lilly Grantee Award, Ernest Guenther Award of the American Chemical Society, Pfizer Research Award for Synthetic Organic Chemistry, American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the ICI Pharmaceutical Group's Stuart Award for Excellence in Chemistry, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, National Science Foundation Award for Special Creativity, two National Institutes of Health Merit Awards (1993, 2006), Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Award, the American Chemical Society H. C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, Wilbur Cross Medal of Yale University, the first Associated Stanford Students Union Teaching Award, the Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching, the Bing Teaching Award, and the Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award from Stanford University. He has lectured extensively (>350) as a named, plenary or keynote speaker. Professor Wender has served as a consultant to various pharmaceutical companies and on various editorial advisory boards and on science advisory boards of several companies, institutes and universities. He is a former editor of Synthesis and has served on the Chemistry Advisory Boards to the National Science Foundation and the American Association for Cancer Research, as Chairman of the National Institutes of Health Medicinal Chemistry Study Section, the NIH Synthetic and Biological Chemistry Study Section, and the NIH Taxol Study Section and is currently a member of the NIH College of CSR reviewers.