Medicinal Chemistry Shared Resource (MCSR)

Faculty and Staff

Christian Wolf, Ph.D., Director

Dr. Christian Wolf is a tenured Professor in the Departments of Chemistry. He has extensive expertise in drug discovery/medicinal chemistry, synthetic methodology, asymmetric catalysis, stereochemistry (in particular chiral amplification processes and stereomutations of chiral compounds), molecular recognition processes, enantioselective analysis and chirality sensing. He has published about 170 research articles, a very well-received book on dynamic stereochemistry of chiral compounds and several book chapters and patents. He has been the principal investigator on many government and foundation grants. Dr. Wolf is responsible for defining the scientific and financial goals, and the overall direction of the MCSR including drug design, synthesis planning, SAR development and compound release. He works directly with colleagues on the Main Campuns and in the Medical Center. This includes establishing scientific collaborations, writing grants and manuscripts.

Balaraman Kaluvu, PhD, Manager

Dr. Balaraman Kaluvu is Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Chemistry. He has over 10 years experience in synthetic chemistry, especially in the field of medicinal chemistry and drug formulation He has several peer-reviewed publications and is listed as inventor on several patent applications. Dr. Balaraman has ample experience with multi-step synthesis, reaction optimization, overcoming synthetic challenges, methodology development, compound isolation, purification and characterization, and has demonstrated numerous times on-time product delivery.

Dr. Balaraman is supervising a wide range of drug discovery projects aimed at the development of new treatments for various cancers, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He is estimating the timeline and budget of MCSR collaborative projects and he is responsible for the day-to-day operations, including supervising technical staff, training graduate and undergraduate students, synthesis operations, structure elucidation and monitoring quality control.

Benefits and Opportunities of Working Within the Shared Resources

In addition to the many benefits offered to all Georgetown University employees, there are a number of benefits specific to staff of the Shared Resources. Shared Resource directors will work with staff to develop a plan for continuing education and training. Opportunities offered will depend on the workload of the shared resource and the availability of resources but the Shared Resource director will make every effort to ensure that staff receive the education and training needed to move their career along.