Webster Santos named College of Science Faculty Fellow
Webster Santos, professor of chemistry in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, has been named a College of Science Faculty Fellow by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The College of Science Faculty Fellowships were established in 2019 with support from alumni and friends of the college to enhance the national and international prominence of the College of Science. These fellowships recognize faculty dedicated to extraordinary research and teaching, to recruit scholars with exceptional records of achievement, and/or retain high-performing faculty members who make significant contributions to the university’s research efforts.
Recipients hold the title of College of Science Faculty Fellow for a period of three years.
A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2006, Santos currently serves as the director of the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery. He is an expert medicinal chemist with a strong interest in drug development. His research focuses on compounds with novel modes of action to treat fatty liver disease, neurodegenerative diseases, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and aging. A major goal of his current research is to develop a drug that increases metabolism without exercise, a program that has implications in obesity and diabetes.
Santos has more than 20 issued and pending patents. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, he serves on the editorial advisory board of Current Medicinal Chemistry. He has more than 100 published papers in peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous awards including the College of Science Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award.
Research from his laboratories has resulted in three spin off companies: Flux Therapeutics, SphynKx Therapeutics LLC, and Continuum Biosciences, Inc. His work is supported with funds from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and several other foundations. His laboratory has trained 29 master’s degree and Ph.D. students, and engages undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students in chemistry.
Santos received his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. His 2002 to 2006 postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University was funded by a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.
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