markji

Mark Ji, Ph.D., Nanoscale & Biomedical Photonic Imaging

Dr. Ji was born and raised in Jiangsu province of China, he then moved to Shanghi and obtained his B.S. in Pharmacy from Second Military Medical University of China. At the same university, he earned his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Wannian Zhang. His thesis work combines two of his interest: structure-based inhibitor design and chemical synthesis. Then he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry of the School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University of China. After two and a half years teaching in Medicinal Chemistry, he completed his service in the Army and moved to the United States to join Professor Richard B. Silverman's group at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow between 2002 to 2006.

While at Northwestern University he proposed a new concept of minimal pharmacophoric element and developed a new approach for fragment-based inhibitor design, called fragment hopping. By using this new strategy, Dr. Ji discovered the most potent and selective nNOS inhibitor reported to date. Dr. Ji was appointed as a research associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University between 2007 to 2010.

His current independent research interests are largely dedicated to the structure-based design and synthesis of small molecules that can modulate cellular signaling pathways with an emphasis on protein-protein interactions and target specificity.

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Mark Ji, Ph.D., Nanoscale & Biomedical Photonic Imaging

Research Team