Adel Nefzi

Dr. Nefzi is associate member and director of chemistry at Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, Port St. Lucie, FL and affiliate Professor at Florida Atlantic University. He is also, an invited Professor at the School of Pharmacy, Tunisia & Biotechnopole of Sidi-Thabet. Organic & Medicinal Chemistry: The central focus of Dr. Nefzi’s work is the development of efficient approaches to the synthesis of novel small molecule and macrocyclic combinatorial libraries. All of the libraries prepared are being made available to the scientific community through the Institute Biological Outreach Program for the identification of new hits as first steps of an optimal “design and selection” process for lead optimization for the development of new pain management, cancer, tuberculosis and antimicrobial drugs.

​

Dr. Nefzi has expanded the area combinatorial chemistry within organic synthesis by developing methods to prepare a variety of heterocyclic compounds, peptidomimetics, and peptides. Combinatorial chemistry has deeply impacted the drug discovery process by accelerating the synthesis and screening of large numbers of compounds having therapeutic and/or diagnostic potential. These techniques offer unique enhancement in the potential identification of new and/or therapeutic candidates. Dr. Nefzi efforts over the past ten years have been focused in the design and diversity oriented synthesis of low molecular weight acyclic and heterocyclic combinatorial libraries for therapeutic applications. As evidenced by his publications, Dr. Nefzi’s synthetic libraries have impacted numerous fields of human health, including cancer, inflammation, pain, diabetes, and bacterial resistance. Over the past ten years, Dr. Nefzi’s research has been supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) and by the Arthritis and Cancer Pain Research Institute (ACPRI). Dr. Nefzi has contributed numerous publications (>90) to the scientific literature in addition to securing several patents and presenting his work through oral communications at a variety of scientific symposia.