Todd Black PhD

Todd Black is the Executive Director for Merck's antibacterial, antifungal, and HCV Basic Research group, and has over 20 years of experience in the discovery and development of novel anti-infective agents. Todd received his doctorate degree from the Department of Biochemistry/Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratories at Michigan State University studying prokaryotic cellular differentiation and development in the cyanobacterium Anabaena. He joined the Ciba–Geigy Agricultural Biotechnology Research Unit initially as a postdoctoral associate and then full-time employee where he pioneered genomics-based target discovery in model fungal pathogens and studied toxin production in phytopathic fungi, quorum-sensing control of antifungal metabolite synthesis by Pseudomonas fluorescens and the expression and modification of secondary-metabolite pathways in Myxobacteria and Actinomycetes.
He joined the Antimicrobial Therapeutics team at the Schering–Plough Research Institute in 1997, initially leading the genomics-based antibacterial and antifungal drug discovery team. Todd was responsible for supporting the discovery and development of a variety therapies for treatment of infectious diseases, including: evernimicin (Ziracin) a novel antibiotic; posaconazole (Noxafil) antifungal; garenoxacin (FQ-antibiotic); AN2690, a boron-based topical antifungal agent for onychomycosis; vicriviroc, an HIV CCR5 antagonist in addition to leading multiple initiatives on novel target discovery programs.