Ariel Fernandez Explained

Birth Date:8 April 1957
Birth Place:Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Doctoral Advisor:Oktay Sinanoğlu
Thesis Title:Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes
Thesis Url:http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/9852978
Thesis Year:1984
Known For:Dehydrons

Ariel Fernandez (born Ariel Fernández Stigliano, April 8, 1957) is an Argentinian–American physical chemist and pharmaceutical researcher.[1]

Education and early career

Fernandez received Licentiate degrees in Chemistry (1979) and Mathematics (1980) from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina. He then earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1984 with a thesis entitled Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes[2]

Career

Fernandez held the Karl F. Hasselmann Professorship of Bioengineering at Rice University until 2011.[3] He is a member of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina.[4]

Fernandez developed the concept of the dehydron, an adhesive structural defect in a soluble protein that promotes its own dehydration.[5] The nonconserved nature of protein dehydrons has implications for drug discovery, as dehydrons may be targeted by highly specific drugs/ligands.[6] This technology was applied by Fernandez and collaborators to design a new compound based on the anticancer drug Gleevec, in order to reduce its cardiotoxicity.[7] [8] In laboratory tests, the new compound was similar to Gleevec in inhibiting gastrointestinal stromal tumors, but without toxic effects on cardiac cells, although it lacked Gleevec's inhibitory effects on leukemia cells.[8]

The editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences retracted a January 2006 paper coauthored by Fernandez because it had "substantial overlap", without attribution, of figures and text from an article by Fernandez published in Structure the previous month, a form of duplicate publication.[9] The website Retraction Watch has documented incidences of scientific concerns about some of Fernandez's other publications, claims that Fernandez has denied.[10]

Awards

Fernandez was awarded a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award for early-career researchers in 1991;[11] a Guggenheim Fellowship for researchers in Latin America and the Caribbean in 1995;[12] and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for his "contributions to understanding protein folding and protein-protein interactions and the use of this knowledge to design new drugs", in 2006.[13]

Books

Notes and References

  1. Ariel Fernandez CV and Biographical Narrative. Ariel Fernandez. Academia.edu.
  2. Ariel Fernandez. Yale University Dissertation: Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes (Dissipative Structures, Potential Energy Surfaces). Published/Created:1984
  3. .
  4. Web site: Comunicación - Conicet. CONICET.
  5. . Monroe . Dan . Proteins Hook up Where Water Allows . 2012 . 5 . 51 . 51 . 10.1103/Physics.5.51 . 2012PhyOJ...5...51M . June 23, 2021.
  6. Crunkhorn . Sarah . Anticancer drugs: Redesigning kinase inhibitors . 2008 . . 7 . 120–121 . 10.1038/nrd2524 . 27083179 .
  7. Demetri G. D. Structural reengineering of imatinib to decrease cardiac risk in cancer therapy.2007 Dec 3; J Clin Invest. 117(12):3650–3653. doi 10.1172/JCI34252 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2096446/
  8. Dunham W. Reworked Gleevec curbs heart-related complication. REUTERS December 3, 2007 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cancer-gleevec-idUSN0341290220071203
  9. Retraction for Fernández et al., Packing defects as selectivity switches for drug-based protein inhibitors. Nicholas R.. Cozzarelli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. 103. 11. 4329. March 14, 2006. 10.1073/pnas.0601034103. 16505348 . 1449696 . 2006PNAS..103.4329C . free .
  10. Meet Retraction Watch, the Blog That Points Out the Human Stains on the Scientific Record. Steve. Kolowich. September 25, 2015. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  11. Web site: Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program Past Awards . December 3, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160705210425/http://www.dreyfus.org/announcements/PAST-TC.pdf . July 5, 2016 . dead .
  12. Web site: Ariel Fernández . Fellows . John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . September 27, 2012.
  13. Web site: College of Fellows . Members . American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering . September 27, 2012.
  14. Dobson . Peter J. . September 2017 . 2017ConPh..58..369D . 10.1080/00107514.2017.1371227 . 4 . Contemporary Physics . 369 . Informa Limited . Review of Physics at the Biomolecular Interface . 58. 126086755 .

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