Dr. William Gerwick

Biography

William Gerwick is a Distinguished Professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on the exploration of unique natural products from marine algae and cyanobacteria that possess useful biomedical properties. His team is involved in the discovery and evaluation of compounds in areas such as cancer, inflammation, infectious diseases, and neurochemical pathways. Gerwick’s group utilizes SCUBA diving to collect marine samples from diverse locations worldwide and grows marine life in the laboratory. The researchers test the bioactivity of extracts, isolating active compounds and defining their structures through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS). Gerwick's significant contributions include developing new analytical methods for structure determination and pursuing synthetic medicinal chemistry to produce selective analogs targeting diseases like malaria. His academic achievements include a B.S. in Biochemistry from UC Davis and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as numerous awards for his contributions to the field, including being an elected Fellow of the American Society of Pharmacognosy and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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