Andrea Morrison (632005783)

CHEM-120-510

Texas Inspired Drug Discovery Efforts

Jonathan Sessler graduated from The University of California, Berkeley in 1977 with a
Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry. He then went on to get a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford
University in 1982. In 1984 he became an assistant professor at the University of Austin in Texas
after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Kyoto, Japan. He currently has over 90 patents in
the United States and has won many awards in the scientific community. His lecture mainly went
over the idea of porphyrin and how it can help in drug development. He stated the porphyrins
deal with iron and that inturn can lead to a relationship with hemoglobin. In 1988 Sessler wrote
a paper on expanded porphyrins and dubbed them Texaphyrins. A porphyrin is an anion receptor
and it was found that it has a centrally bound fluoride anion complex that is positively polarized.
Anion binding is a recurring theme that Sessler goes over in his presentation and his work with
porphyrins in drug related trials. Another molecule that Sessler discussed was Rubyrin which has
a special absorption and had a 2:1 ratio for the chloride anion complex. Rosarians is another
molecule that Sessler discussed where it forces anti aromatically. The synthesis and structure of
rosarian 1 is where the electron is unstable. He also mentioned when HCl is induced into a
stepwise reduction reaction of rosarian it makes the color disappear. The anion plays a role in
mediating the electron transfer of the reaction. Sessler said that non aromatic to aromatic
happened by pronation which played an important role in his studies. He also looked at
compounds that switched their character for these experiments. If the compounds could pronate
it makes it easier to do ‘switch’. This also meant that these compounds could be switched on or
off and that they could be triggered in the experiment. In his experiments they would use
ultrasounds and photoacoustic imaging to see if they were getting results. This was done by
adding the molecules and turning them on and off and a laser could be used as well. Another way
to tell if his experiments were successful was by looking at the pH or the pH change in what they
were testing. This was used in his cancer trial where if someone has cancer the idealistic pH
would be 6 and right now with his compounds they have a pH around 3 or 4. He gave the
example when someone is hungry the pH of the stomach drops and becomes more acidic. He
tested this in mice and when the mouse was hungry and then they added bicarbonate and anti
acidic to see what would happen to the pH. Sessler then went on to explain the difference
between fundamental and applied science. Throughout all his research into porphyrins he started
a company with Richard Miller in 1991 called Pharmacyclics because he was seeing if there was
 Andrea Morrison (632005783)
CHEM-120-510

a way to help out cancer patients and he was one himself. His company focused on clinical trials
with people who had metastatic brain cancer at first. In 2015 this company was bought by
AbbVie for 21 billion dollars.
Overall Sessler’s lecture was entertaining and was interesting to see the different ways
people in the scientific community are trying to solve the mystery of cancer. Sessler did mention
that his research is still ongoing and that a lot of things could change in the coming year for
cancer research. I wish he would have gone into more detail about what experiments he was
actually a part of instead of coming over his collaborators' research.