Jeffery W. Kelly

Jeffery W. Kelly (born August 23, 1960 in Medina, New York) is the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Lita Annenberg Professor of Chemistry within the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. His work focuses on the creation and the maintenance of the proteome.

Kelly received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1986) and performed post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University (1986-89). His research focuses on the chemistry and biology of protein homeostasis or "proteostasis". Besides studying the structural and energetic basis behind protein folding, his laboratory also studies the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's Disease, and the familial gelsolin and transthyretin-based amyloidoses–publishing over 200 peer-reviewed papers in this area to date. He has also provided insight into genetic diseases associated with loss of protein function, such as lysosomal storage diseases and Cystic Fibrosis.

Kelly has started two biotechnology companies, FoldRx Pharmaceuticals and Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. that are developing first in class drugs for the amelioration of diseases associated with protein misfolding and aggregation. He has won numerous awards including the American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, The American Peptide Society Vincent du Vigneaud Award, the State University of New York at Fredonia Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the Protein Society-Dupont Young Investigator Award, The Biophysical Society National Lecturer Award, the Texas A&M University Honors Program Teacher / Scholar Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and the Searle Scholar Award.

External links

[http://www.scripps.edu/skaggs/kelly/ Kelly Lab page]