Jef De Brabander, Ph.D.
Jef K. De Brabander is a native of Belgium where he pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Ghent (with Prof. M. Vandewalle, Ph.D. 1993). Following postdoctoral studies with the late Wolfgang Oppolzer at the University of Geneva (94-95) and Paul Wender at Stanford University as a NATO and Fulbright-Hays fellow (95-96), he began his independent career at the University of Geneva. In 1998, he was recruited to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2007 and appointed Co-Director of the “Chemistry and Cancer Scientific Program” of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.
He currently holds the Julie and Louis Beecherl, Jr., Chair in Medical Science, and in 2014 was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Jef De Brabander was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (2001-03), received the “Journal Award” from the editorial boards of Synlett and Synthesis (2006) and an Academic Development Award from the Chemistry Council of Merck Research Laboratories (2004-08). Jef De Brabander has co-founded three start-up companies (Reata Pharmaceuticals, Nasdaq RETA; Lydian Neurosciences; and Barricade Therapeutics).
Dr. De Brabander’s achievements in basic science and translational research have been documented in over 96 peer-reviewed publications and 13 patents. He has presented more than 60 lectures (Named, Plenary, or Keynote) at major national and international conferences, and more than 80 lectures at various universities and pharmaceutical companies. Jef De Brabander was a member of the National Institutes of Health Study Section, the Chair of the 51st Gordon Research Conference on Natural Products (Tilton, New Hampshire, July 2010) and the ESF-COST conference on Natural Products Chemistry, Biology and Medicine III (Maratea, Italy, September 2010).