Scientist Profiles - Thomas Kodadek

Thomas Kodadek, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry & Cancer Biology

Professor Thomas Kodadek received his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Miami (FL) in 1981 and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University in 1985.  He then pursued postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Professor Bruce Alberts at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School from 1985 to 1987.  In the fall of 1987 he joined the faculty of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Texas, Austin, rising to the rank of full professor.  In 1998, he moved to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas where he served as Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Biology as well as the Director of the Division of Translational Research.  In June 2009, Professor Kodadek moved to The Scripps Research Institute campus in Jupiter, FL.

Professor Kodadek is one of the pioneers of the field of chemical biology, which involves the development of chemical tools to monitor and manipulate important processes in biology and medicine.  His laboratory has also made important contributions to our understanding of how genes are rearranged and expressed.  More recently, Professor Kodadek has focused on the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools for the treatment of immune diseases and cancers.  This work was recognized in 2006 by a prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Pioneer Award for “exceptionally creative research.”  Opko, a Miami biotechnology company, has established a laboratory in Jupiter for the discovery of novel diagnostic markers for cancer, autoimmune, and neurological diseases using the methods developed in the Kodadek laboratory.