Brian J. Stockman

Brian Stockman is Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. He received his B.S. in chemistry & zoology from the University of Iowa, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison working with John Markley. He was then a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Michigan and Harvard Medical School working with Gerhard Wagner. Dr. Stockman’s graduate and postdoctoral research involved the application of NMR spectroscopy to characterize protein structures and protein/ligand complexes, specifically those of flavodoxin and dihydrofolate reductase. In 1991 Dr. Stockman began an 18-year career as an industrial research scientist, starting at The Upjohn Company and transitioning to Pharmacia & Upjohn, Pharmacia, and Pfizer. His early projects included structural characterization of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist protein and stromelysin/inhibitor complexes. Later projects involved applications of NMR screening and in particular the development of NMR-based activity assays for fragment screening.

In 2009 Dr. Stockman transitioned to an academic career in the Department of Chemistry at Adelphi University, a primarily undergraduate institution on Long Island. His undergraduate research program contains both research and training objectives. The long-term research objective is to identify inhibitors of essential nucleoside ribohydrolase enzymes that possess efficacy against both 5-nitroimidazole-sensitive and 5-nitroimidazole-resistant strains of Trichomonas vaginalis. The training objective is achieved by immersing undergraduate students in these investigations and exposing them to cutting-edge instrumentation and research. His first publications at Adelphi demonstrated that NMR-based screening assays used routinely in industry can also be developed and implemented for drug discovery by undergraduate students. A fragment-based approach to identify inhibitors with novel chemical scaffolds is now in progress, with support from a National Institutes of Health R15 award. Trichomoniasis cases resulting from strains resistant to existing drug therapies continue to increase. However, research and development of antitrichomonal agents with novel mechanisms of action is largely non-existent in the pharmaceutical industry. This creates a niche that is exquisitely matched to Dr. Stockman’s expertise and interest, and a perfect opportunity to engage undergraduate students in hypothesis-driven research toward an unmet medical need.