Jennifer S. Laurence

Dr. Laurence is Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and affiliate member of the Bioengineering Research Center at the University of Kansas. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from Purdue University and received postdoctoral training in Structural Biology. She has 15 years of experience working with proteins, focusing on the analysis of their structure, function, and stability. Dr. Laurence will be this year’s Key Note speaker at IBC’s Formulation Strategies for Protein Therapeutics conference. Her research is supported currently by grants/awards from NIH, Coulter Foundation, PhRMA Foundation, and industry contracts. Since 2008 she has published over 20 papers and a book chapter, filed four patents, and graduated four PhD and two MS students. In 2011, Dr. Laurence was awarded the Louise Byrd Graduate Educator Award. She has previously received recognition as Mentor of the Year from the NIH IMSD program in 2006 and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Teacher of the Year in 2006. This past year, she developed a partnership with Nairobi University for participation in her department’s distance Master’s degree program. Dr. Laurence also serves on the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Science, the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and is Guest Editor for a 2012 special issue of Molecular Pharmaceutics on Advances in Biophysical and Bioanalytical Protein Characterization. She has served on several NIH review panels covering grant applications related to biotechnologies, cancer detection, and small business innovation. In Dec 2010, Dr. Laurence founded Echogen Inc. to commercialize her lab’s unique metal-peptide technology.