A faculty member at the Department of Chemistry and the Loker Hydrocarbon Institute of the USC Dornsife College, Dr. Petasisis a Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacology and holds the Harold & Lillian Moulton Endowed Chair in Organic Chemistry.
He also serves as Head of the division of Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry. Dr. Petasis has joint appointments at the USC School of Pharmacy, and the Norris Comprehensive Cancer of the Keck School of Medicine and is a member of the USC Ginsburg Institute of BiomedicalTherapeutics. He has over 180 publications and has given over 180 invited lectures worldwide. His work has been recognized with several awards and honors, including the USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship; worldwide Novartis Chemistry Lectureship; Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society; Boron Americas Award for distinguished Achievements in Boron Science; and Frontiers in Chemistry Lecture, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is a member of the National Academy of Inventors and has been a member of multiple pharma and biotech scientific advisory boards. Dr. Petasis’s research expertise includes organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, biological chemistry, chemical biology, and drug discovery. In addition to developing several innovative methods that are widely used in synthetic and medicinal chemistry, his laboratory has made numerous contributions to the design, synthesis, optimization, and biological investigation of a wide range of bioactive small molecules, including multi-disciplinary collaborations with biomedical researchers in a variety of areas