Derek Lowe (chemist)
American chemist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Derek Lowe is a medicinal chemist working on preclinical drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. Lowe has published a blog about this field, "In the Pipeline", since 2002[1] and is a columnist for the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World.[2]
Biography
Lowe (born in Harrisburg, Arkansas) got his BA from Hendrix College and his PhD in organic chemistry from Duke University on synthesis of natural products, before researching for a year in Germany on a Humboldt Fellowship.[3][4]
Lowe was one of the first people to blog from inside the pharmaceutical industry, with the approval of his supervisor and the company legal department,[5] and one of the first science bloggers.[6] By 2006, his blog had between 3,000 and 4,000 visitors per day during the workweek; he covered business matters, trends and issues in medicinal chemistry, and legal matters like patent law and regulation.[7] At that time he was working at a pharmaceutical company doing hit to lead medicinal chemistry work.[7] As of 2010[update] his blog received between 15,000 and 20,000 page views on a typical weekday.[8] His response to a 2013 article in BuzzFeed that propagated chemophobia was widely cited.[9][10][11]
He serves on the editorial board of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters and on the advisory board of Chemical & Engineering News.[12]
As of 2018[update] he was working at Novartis; formerly he had worked for 10 years at Vertex, 9 years at Bayer, and 8 years at Schering-Plough.[4][13][14]
Notable publications
Book
- Lowe, Derek B. (2016). The Chemistry Book: From Gunpowder to Graphene, 250 Milestones in the History of Chemistry. Sterling. ISBN 9781454911807.
Selected scientific papers
- Greenlee, W; Clader, J; et al. (April 2001). "Muscarinic agonists and antagonists in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease". Farmaco. 56 (4): 247–50. doi:10.1016/s0014-827x(01)01102-8. PMID 11421251.
- Lowe, DB; Magnuson, S; et al. (21 June 2004). "In vitro SAR of (5-(2H)-isoxazolonyl) ureas, potent inhibitors of hormone-sensitive lipase". Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters. 14 (12): 3155–9. doi:10.1016/j.bmcl.2004.04.015. PMID 15149665.
- Rudolph, J; Esler, WP; et al. (18 October 2007). "Quinazolinone derivatives as orally available ghrelin receptor antagonists for the treatment of diabetes and obesity". Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 50 (21): 5202–16. doi:10.1021/jm070071+. PMID 17887659.
- Arrowsmith, CH; Audia, JE; et al. (August 2015). "The promise and peril of chemical probes". Nature Chemical Biology. 11 (8): 536–41. doi:10.1038/nchembio.1867. PMC 4706458. PMID 26196764.
Selected blogs or commentary
- Lowe, Derek (7 February 2002). "The Latest Thing". In the Pipeline. (1st post)
- Lowe, Derek (7 May 2010). "Molecular modelling's $10-million comeback?". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.223.
- Lowe, Derek (23 February 2010). "Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride". In the Pipeline. Cited in "Pressure Cooker". What-if xkcd. April 9, 2013.
- Lowe, Derek (24 September 2010). "Avandia Goes Down: A Research Rant". In the Pipeline.
- Lowe, Derek (21 June 2013). "Eight Toxic Foods: A Little Chemical Education". In the Pipeline., "Eight Toxic Foods: The Aftermath". In the Pipeline. 24 June 2013.
- Lowe, Derek (24 August 2016). "Drug Mergers Hurt in Every Direction (Save One)". In the Pipeline.
- Lowe, Derek (12 January 2017). "Curcumin Will Waste Your Time". In the Pipeline. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
- Lowe, Derek (10 January 2018). "Objections to (Some) Drug Discovery AI". In the Pipeline.