Nessan Kerrigan gets NIH grant

Associate Professor Nessan Kerrigan, of the Department of Chemistry, was awarded a grant (1R15GM107800) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health, starting in September of this year. The award, titled Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of Deoxypropionates from Ketenes, provides $333,587 for the first year of the three-year award. The aim of the grant is to develop methods to prepare new analogues of drug molecules. This has great importance for pharmaceutical drug synthesis and, ultimately, human health (in this case, developing new treatments for tuberculosis). This award follows on previous grants from the National Science Foundation, including a current one to explore the development of the catalytic asymmetric ketene heterodimerization reaction. Kerrigan’s work illustrates how basic science supported by NSF can lead to medical breakthroughs supported by NIH.