Photograph by Kevin Fitzsimons
Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn, Professor and Jack L. Beal Chair, College of Phamacy, The Ohio State University (OSU)
Overall Principal Investigator; Project Leader, Project 1; Core Leader, Core C
Dr. Kinghorn has worked on the elucidation of bioactive plant metabolites for about 45 years, especially on potential anticancer, antimicrobial, cancer chemopreventive, and taste-modifying agents, and on the constituents of botanical dietary supplements. His research programs have been funded independently since 1980 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and by private industry. Dr. Kinghorn is highly experienced in the running of collaborative natural product drug discovery programs and has served as P.I. of National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group (NCDDG) (U01/U19 CA52956; 1992-2006) and program project (P01 CA125066; 2007-2019) research programs, aimed at the discovery of new natural product antitumor lead compounds. For the above-mentioned ongoing P01 research project, funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, Dr. Kinghorn is also Project Leader of Project 1 (isolation chemistry of tropical plants and biological testing) and Core Leader of Core C (administration and biostatistics; conducted in collaboration with Dr. Xiaoli Zhang, Center for Biostatistics, OSU). He has published over 550 peer-reviewed research articles, reviews, and book chapters, and has been named as a co-inventor for 15 patent applications. In addition, he has edited or co-edited 25 scientific volumes. Dr. Kinghorn is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Natural Products (co-published by the American Chemical Society and the American Society of Pharmacognosy; 1994-present) and Book Series Editor in Chief of Progress in the Chemistry of Organic Natural Products (Springer International Publishers; 2008-present). Dr. Kinghorn is a former President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy, and was presented with the Norman R. Farnsworth Research Achievement Award from this society in 2010, for lifetime contributions to natural products research. He is a Fellow of five scientific and professional societies and of the School of Pharmacy, University of London, an institution of which he is an alumnus. Dr. Kinghorn has trained nearly 50 graduate students, and supervised directly about 70
postdoctoral students and visiting scholars. The vast majority of his previous pre- and postdoctoral mentees have gone on to have successful independent careers, either in academia, industry, or government.