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Columns::February 25, 2002
Two Gates to Cambridge
New approach to campus parking regulations adopted
Spring Charter Lecture will deal with the relationship between man and nature
Grad School administrator says faculty key to recruitment success
Proposal for campus memorial goes before University Council Executive Committee
Watered down: Study paves way to water-efficient cotton
Professor focuses on teaching his students different ‘fields’ of law
Newsmakers
Merging services, expanding missions
Campus News
Iowa prof will head pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences here
Vasu Nair, University of Iowa Foundation distinguished professor, has accepted a position as endowed professor and head of
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| Vasu Nair |
the department of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences at the College of Pharmacy. He also will be the director of the new Center for Drug Discovery at UGA. Nair will assume his position, which has been approved by the board of regents, in June.
A member of the chemistry faculty at the University of Iowa since 1969, Nair conducts research in the chemistry and chemical biology of novel molecules of potential therapeutic significance against DNA and RNA viruses, including HIV. The recent discovery in his laboratory of a potent inhibitor of HIV integrase received both national and international attention. His research is currently supported by three major National Institutes of Health grants.
During his career, Nair has received numerous honors and awards. He received the 2001 Midwest Award of the American Chemical Society and was elected Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1998. He was named the University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor in 1993 and received the University of Iowa Collegiate Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching for 1999-2000. The University of Adelaide, Australia, honored him in 1991 with a prestigious and rarely awarded doctor of science degree.
In 2000 Nair was co-chair of the HIV Therapeutics group in “Summit on Infectious Disease Therapeutics,” NIAID, National Institutes of Health, and in the previous year he was chair of the Gordon Conference on Purines, Pyrmidines and Related Substances (Chemistry and Biology). Nair is a charter member of the AIDS and Related Research Study Section of the National Institutes of Health and a member of the editorial board of the Electronic Journal in Organic Chemistry and of Nucleosides, Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids.
Nair has authored 175 research papers and creative works, which include one book and numerous book chapters. He has presented more than 250 invited and contributed conference papers and lectures. He holds four U.S. patents.
Nair received his bachelor of science degree with honors in 1963 at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, and his Ph.D. at the University of Adelaide in Australia in 1966. He was then a research associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana, followed by an appointment as research fellow at Harvard University where he worked with Nobel Prize winner R.B. Woodward on the total synthesis of Vitamin B12.
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