Celebrating the Achievements of Professor Iwao Ojima On the Occasion of His 80th Birthday

“Research and Innovation at the Interface of Chemistry, Biology and Medicine”

June 6-7, 2025, Charles B. Wang Center,Stony Brook University
On June 5, 2025 Professor Iwao Ojima will be celebrating his 80th Birthday. In honor of the occasion, the Ojima Laboratory alumni are organizing a two-day symposium at Stony Brook University on June 6 and 7, 2025.

Dr. Iwao Ojima received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. (1973) degrees from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He joined the Sagami Institute of Chemical Research and held a position of Senior Research Fellow until 1983. He joined the faculty at the Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook first as Associate Professor (1983), was promoted to Professor (1984), Leading Professor (1991), and then to Distinguished Professor (1995). He served as the Department Chairman from 1997 to 2003. He has been serving as the founding Director for the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (ICB&DD) from 2003. He also serves as the President of the Stony Brook University Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors from 2015.

He has a wide range of research interests in synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry as well as chemical biology, including discovery and development of anticancer agents and antimicrobials, targeted drug delivery, catalytic methodologies and asymmetric synthesis. His awards and honors include Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1994), E. B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries of Medicinally Active Substances (2001), the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame (2006), ACS Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry (2013) and Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products (2019) from the American Chemical Society; The Chemical Society of Japan Award (1999); Outstanding Inventor Award (2002) from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York; Fellows of J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1995), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1997),  The New York Academy of Sciences (2000), the American Chemical Society (2010), the National Academy of Inventors (2014), and European Academy of Sciences (2020).

SB Symposium Organizing Committee

  •  Scott D. Kuduk, Ph.D.  (B.S. 1992, Ph.D.1996)
  • Songnian Lin, Ph.D. (Ph.D. 1999)
  • Leila Abrous , Ph.D.  (B.S. 1995)
  • Michael Miller, Ph.D. (postdoc 1998-2000)
  • Deric Geng, Ph.D. (Ph.D. 2002)
  • Larisa Kuzunetsova (Ph.D. 2005)
  • Krupanandam Haranahalli (Ph.D. 2016)
  • Thierry Brigaud, Ph.D. (postdoc 1990-1991)
  • Greta Varchi, Ph.D. (postdoc 2003-2004)
  • Tadashi Honda, Ph.D. (Research Professor, ICB&DD)
  • Roxanne Brockner (Executive Secretary, Asst. to Director ICB&DD)
  • Patricia Marinaccio (Coordinator, B.A. 1964)

 

Plenary Speakers

  • Makoto Fujita (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) (Opening Lecture)
  • Mikiko Sodeoka (RIKEN. Japan)
  • Louis Fensterbank (Collège de France, Paris, France)
  • Ivana Fenoglio (Univ. Turin, Italy)
  • Thomas W. Bell (Univ. Nevada Reno, USA)
  • Steven E. Rokita (Johns Hopkins Univ., USA)
  • Peter J. Tonge (Stony Brook Univ., USA)
  • Carlos Simmerling (Stony Brook Univ., USA)
  • Scott D. Kuduk (The Janssen Pharmaceutical, USA)
  • Songnian Lin (Merck Research Lab., USA)
  • Iwao Ojima (Stony Brook Univ. USA) (Closing Lecture)

 

Keynote Speakers

  • Hauh-Jyun Chen (Nat. Chung Cheng Univ., Taiwan)
  • Thierry Brigaud (Univ. Cergy-Pontoise, France)
  • Greta Varchi (NRC-ISOF-Bologna, Italy)
  • Claude Commandeur (Symeres, The Netherlands)
  • Chih-Yuan Grace Chuang (Cytokinetics, U.S.A.)
  • Chung-Ming Sun (Nat. Chiao Tung Univ., Taiwan)
  • Subrata Chakravarty (Hope4Cancer, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Bibia Heidmann (Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, Switzerland) (Panel Discussion)

 

Invited Speakers

  • Masakatsu Eguchi (Univ. Washington, USA)
  • Wen-Hua Chiou (Nat. Chung Hsing Univ., Taiwan)
  • Jason Beiger (Takeda, USA)
  • Joseph Kaloko (Revagenix, Inc., USA)
  • Kunal Kumar (Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, USA)
  • Changwei Wang (Univ. Michigan, USA)
  • Elizabeth Cormier (Food & Drug Admin., USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Deric Geng (WilmerHale LLP, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Evelyne Michaud (The Janssen Pharmaceutical, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Leila Abrous (California State Univ. San Marcos, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Larisa Kuznetsova (Saptalis Pharmaceutical, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • William Berger (Penn Life Sciences, USA) (Panel Discussion)
  • Bruno Chapsal (Pfizer, USA) (Panel Discussion)

 

Sponsors