Bill Wuest

Bill Wuest received his B.S. magna cum laude in Chemistry/Business from the University of Notre Dame in 2003. As an undergraduate, he investigated intramolecular hydroamination reactions under the tutelage of Professor Paul Helquist. Bill then moved to Philadelphia, PA to begin his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania working with Professor Amos B. Smith, III. His graduate work focused on both the total synthesis of peloruside A and the development of Anion Relay Chemistry (ARC) culminating with a Ph.D. in 2008. Bill then traveled to Harvard Medical School as a Ruth Kirschstein-NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Professor Christopher T. Walsh, where he investigated unusual enzymatic transformations in the construction of non-ribosomal peptide natural products. In July of 2011, Bill began his independent career as an Assistant Professor at Temple University and in 2016 was named the Daniel Swern Early Career Professor of Chemistry. In 2017, he then moved to Emory University where he is currently a Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and Associate Professor of Chemistry. His research focuses on the modification of natural products through total synthesis in an effort to develop innovative, pathogen-specific therapeutics. Bill is the recipient of a number of awards including the NIH ESI Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA), NSF CAREER Award, the 2017 ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award, the 2020 David W. Robertson Award from the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry, the New Investigator Award from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, the Thieme Journal of Chemistry Award, the Young Investigator Award from the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University, and the Italia-Eire Foundation Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award from the College of Science and Technology at Temple University. He has also been selected as a Leshner Fellow by the AAAS and a Scialog Fellow by the RCSA.