Dr. Jimmy Orjala, Professor, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
Project Leader, Project 2
Dr. Orjala has worked in the area of natural products drug discovery for over 25 years. His current research focuses on bioactive natural products from cyanobacteria. A major part of his research is focused on understanding the production and mechanisms of action of these natural products. Dr. Orjala also has industrial experience in the discovery of active agents from natural sources. Prior to pursuing his academic career at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he spent five years (1997-2002) at AgraQuest, a biopesticide company in California, where he co-developed two EPA-registered fungicides – the Serenade/Rhapsody and Sonata/Ballade lines of products. Additionally, he is very familiar with the conduct of collaborative multi-investigator research programs through his past and ongoing involvement in such programs. Dr. Orjala is Project Leader of Project 2 in the present program project (isolation chemistry of aquatic and terrestrial cyanobacteria, and the collection of tropical plant species). In addition, he is also Co-investigator in both the UIC/NIH Botanical Center and Center for Natural Products Technologies at UIC (CENAPT), both large collaborative programs housed mainly at UIC. Since his appointment at UIC in 2004, Dr. Orjala has supervised the research training of eleven graduate students, six postdoctoral fellows, and 19 undergraduate and high school students. The majority of the graduates and postgraduates from his laboratory have proceeded to work at various academic institutions either as research associates or research specialists and three have accepted tenure-track positions. In 2018, Dr. Alessandra S. Eustaquio, Assistant Professor, College of Pharmacy, UIC formally joined the Project 2 team and brings specific expertise in genomics.