Ariel Fernandez

Ariel Fernandez
Born (1957-04-08) April 8, 1957
Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Residence
Citizenship
  • Argentina
  • USA
Nationality Argentinian
Fields
Institutions
Alma mater
Thesis Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes (1984)
Doctoral advisor Oktay Sinanoğlu
Doctoral students
Known for Dehydrons
Website
http://www.profarielfernandez.com/

Ariel Fernandez (born Ariel Fernández Stigliano, April 8, 1957) is an Argentinian–American physical chemist and pharmaceutical researcher.[3]

Education and early career

Fernandez received Licentiate degrees in Chemistry (1979) and Mathematics (1980) from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina.[3] He then earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1984 with a thesis entitled Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes[4] in the lab of Oktay Sinanoğlu. His early published papers also list him as being associated with the Weizmann Institute of Science, Princeton University, and the University of California at San Diego. He was a senior researcher in the division of Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.[3]

Career

Fernandez has been affiliated with multiple institutions including the University of Miami, Universidad Nacional del Sur, the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, the University of Chicago, Osaka University, the Indiana University School of Medicine, the Morgridge Institute for Research, and National Tsing Hua University. Fernandez held the Karl F. Hasselmann Professorship of Bioengineering at Rice University until 2011.[5] He is a member of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina.[6] Fernandez is listed as an editor for multiple journals published by OMICS Publishing Group.[7][8][9] He currently is employed at a number of self-started pharmaceutical-related companies, including ProWDSciences, AF Innovation, and Ariel Fernandez Consultancy.[3]

Fernandez developed the concept of the dehydron,[10] an adhesive structural defect in a soluble protein that promotes its own dehydration.[11] A dehydron consists of an intramolecular hydrogen bond that is "underwrapped" or incompletely shielded from attack by water in the protein's solvation shell.[12] Dehydrons cause "epistructural tension", that is, interfacial tension around the protein structure[13] and thus promote protein–protein interactions and protein–ligand associations.[14] The nonconserved nature of protein dehydrons has implications for drug discovery, as dehydrons may be targeted by highly specific drugs/ligands engineered to improve dehydron wrapping upon binding.[15] Thus, dehydrons constitute effective selectivity filters for drug design, giving rise to so-called "wrapping technology", a platform to design safer drugs.[16] This technology was first applied by Fernandez and collaborators to redesign the anticancer drug Gleevec, in order to remove its potential cardiotoxicity.[17][18] In a recent patent applying wrapping technology, dehydron-rich regions in a specific protein were targeted by Richard L. Moss and Ariel Fernandez to design drug leads to cure heart failure.[19]

Fernandez has published two books and more than 200 peer-reviewed articles.[20] Four of his articles have been questioned by journals that had earlier accepted them. Publications in BMC Genomics,[21][22] Nature,[23][24] and PLOS Genetics[25][26] have been flagged with expressions of concern, and publication of an article in Annual Review of Genetics has been withheld.[27][28] In 2006, a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article was retracted as an apparent duplicate publication.[29][30] Fernandez responded saying that no evidence has been published in the scientific literature that the data in those papers are invalid.[31]

Awards

Fernandez was awarded the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Distinguished New Faculty in 1989;[3] the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar in 1991;[32] a Guggenheim fellowship in 1995;[33] and is an Elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2006).[34]

Published works

Books

Articles

According to his Google Scholar profile,[35] Fernandez's highest-cited articles include:

References

  1. ↑ "Specificity in the druggable kinome: Molecular basis and its applications". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  2. ↑ "Molecular basis of gene dosage sensitivity". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Ariel Fernandez. "Ariel Fernandez CV and Biographical Narrative". academia.edu.
  4. ↑ Ariel Fernandez. Yale University Dissertation: Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes (Dissipative Structures, Potential Energy Surfaces). Published/Created:1984
  5. ↑ "Administration and faculty" (PDF), Catalog 2010–2011, Rice University, retrieved 2014-12-02.
  6. ↑ "Comunicación - Conicet". CONICET.
  7. ↑ "Editorial Board Bioengineering & Biomedical Science". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  8. ↑ "Editors - Metabolomics Journals - Editorial Board". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  9. ↑ "Editors - Pharmacogenomics Journals - Editorial Board". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  10. ↑ Fernández A, Scott R. Dehydron: a structurally encoded signal for protein interaction. Biophys J. 2003 Sep;85(3):1914-28. PMID 12944304
  11. ↑ Fernández A, Scott R. Adherence of packing defects in soluble proteins. Phys Rev Lett. 2003 91(1):018102. PMID 12906578
  12. ↑ Koppes S. for University of Chicago News Office. Discovery of new sticky force that binds proteins could lead to better drug design. 2 July 2003
  13. ↑ Fernández A. Epistructural tension promotes protein associations. Phys Rev Lett. 2012 May 4;108(18):188102. PMID 22681121
  14. ↑ Monroe D. Focus: Proteins Hook up Where Water Allows. Physics 2012 May 4; 5, 51
  15. ↑ Crunkhorn S. Anticancer drugs: Redesigning kinase inhibitors. February 2008. Nature Revs Drug Discovery 7:120-121 doi 10.1038/nrd2524
  16. ↑ Boyd J. for Rice University News and Media. Drug design: New book introduces fresh approach. 28 April 2010
  17. ↑ Demetri G. D. Structural reengineering of imatinib to decrease cardiac risk in cancer therapy.2007 Dec 3; J Clin Invest. 117(12):3650–3653. doi 10.1172/JCI34252
  18. ↑ Dunham W. Reworked Gleevec curbs heart-related complication. REUTERS December 3, 2007
  19. ↑ Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Invention: Treating Heart Failure by Inhibiting Myosin Interaction with a Regulatory Myosin Binding Protein (US patent No. 9,051,387), Inventors: Richard L. Moss and Ariel Fernandez
  20. ↑ "Scopus - Welcome to Scopus". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  21. ↑ Kowalczuk, M; Nanda, S; Moylan, E (Apr 2013). "Expression of concern: Subfunctionalization reduces the fitness cost of gene duplication in humans by buffering dosage imbalances". BMC Genomics 14: 260. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-260.
  22. ↑ "'Conflicting investigations' prompt expression of concern in BMC Genomics".
  23. ↑ Fernandez, A; Lynch, M (Dec 2014). "Editorial Expression of Concern: Non-adaptive origins of interactome complexity". Nature 516: 440. doi:10.1038/nature13141.
  24. ↑ "Nature issues Expression of Concern for paper by author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch".
  25. ↑ The PLoS Genetics Editors (Sep 2015). "Expression of Concern: Protein Under-Wrapping Causes Dosage Sensitivity and Decreases Gene Duplicability". doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1005499.
  26. ↑ "PLOS Genetics updates flagged paper with expression of concern".
  27. ↑ "Editorial Note on 'Supramolecular Evolution of Protein Organization' by Ariel Fernández".
  28. ↑ "Fernández genetics paper in limbo over data concerns".
  29. ↑ "Retraction for Fernández et al., Packing defects as selectivity switches for drug-based protein inhibitors". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  30. ↑ "PLOS Genetics investigating paper by Ariel Fernandez", Retraction Watch, 9 January 2015
  31. ↑ Post on profarielfernandez.com January 23, 2016.
  32. ↑ Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program Past Awards
  33. ↑ "Ariel Fernández". Fellows. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  34. ↑ "College of Fellows". Members. American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  35. ↑ "Ariel Fernandez - Google Scholar Citations". Retrieved 26 January 2016.

External links

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