A native of Harrisburg, Ark., after graduating from Hendrix, Derek Lowe '83 earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Duke University in 1988, then landed a prestigious Humboldt Fellowship to study in Darmstadt, Germany, for a year. After returning to the U.S.
in 1989, he worked at Schering-Plough in New Jersey doing research on schizophrenia and Alzheimer's. In 1997, he began a decade of work for Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Connecticut, working on diabetes, metabolic disorders, and cancer. After Bayer closed
its North American research operations, he moved to the Boston/Cambridge area to work for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. At Vertex, his work has focused on anitibacterials, antivirals, and multiple sclerosis. He is currently part of a group investigating "undruggable"
targets of all kinds.
In 2002, Derek started a blog site about drug discovery, chemistry, and other scientific news that is now the oldest continuously-running science blog on the internet, garnering about 20,000 page views a day. Derek presents frequently at national and
international conferences, and has an extensive list of scientific publications and more than 25 patents to his credit.