Jonathan Sessler (born 20 May 1956 in

Urbana, Illinois Urbana ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. As of the 2010 United States Census, Urbana is the 38th-most populous municipality in Illinois. It ...

) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of chemistry at

The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. He is notable for his pioneering work on expanded

porphyrin Porphyrins ( ) are a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic compounds, composed of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at their α carbon atoms via methine bridges (=CH−). The parent of porphyrin is porphine, a rare chemical com ...

s and their applications to biology and medicine. He is a co-founder of Pharmacyclics, Inc., a company that works with expanded porphyrins, and Anionics, Inc., which develops

anion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...

recognition chemistry. Pharmacyclics was sold to AbbVie for $21 billion in 2015.

History and career

Sessler received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in Chemistry in 1977 from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in chemistry in 1982 from Stanford University. He continued as a post-doctoral fellow at L'

Université Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur University (''Université Louis-Pasteur''), also known as Strasbourg I or ULP was a large university in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. As of 15 January 2007, there were 18,847 students enrolled at the university, including around 3, ...

, and worked in

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the cit ...

before becoming an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin in 1984. He was treated for

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

at Stanford University Medical Center during work on his Ph.D. Discussions with his colleagues regarding possible treatments eventually led to the discovery of so-called "

texaphyrin Texaphyrin is a sub-class of heterocyclic macrocycle molecules known as porphyrins. The molecule was invented by University of Texas at Austin professor Jonathan Sessler. The name texaphryin arose because some of the molecules have a shape that ...

" molecules, named as such due a semblance to the shape of the five-pointed star in the State flag of Texasbr>10-Gallon Molecule Stomps Tumors
In 1996, Sessler described possible uses of these compounds in medicine in the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' journal. His company, Pharmacyclics, Inc., which went

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

in 1995, licensed the technology behind "texaphyrins" from the University to develop commercial and medical uses for the molecules. Texasflag texaphyrin Rahulsoman

Sessler has written extensively, authoring or co-authoring over 600 publications. In addition, he has co-authored two books and edited another two. He holds more than 70 U.S.

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s. Dr. Sessler has received many awards and much recognition, as a

Sloan Fellow The Sloan Fellows program is the world's first mid-career and senior career master's degree in general management and leadership. It was initially supported by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan, the late CEO of General Motors, to his alma mater, MI ...

(1999), Fellow of the AAAS (1999), Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (1999), ACS Cope Scholar (1999), recipient of the JSPS and Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellowships (1999), and winner of the Izatt-Christensen Award (1999). Sessler has participated in hosting chemistry circuses on the UT campu
University Events , What Starts Here Changes the World
These circuses are held for different grade levels from elementary to college, and aim to expose students to "fun" aspects of chemistry. Sessler has also lectured on how the disease

Porphyria Porphyria is a group of liver disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are ...

, caused by a deficiency in porphyrins, may be related to the origin of myths about

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...

s and

werewolves In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

. In 2021, he was elected member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences., entry in member directory:

References

External links

Jonathan L. Sessler
— Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, The University of Texas at Austin. Accessed 14 March 2006.
Company History & Overview
— Phaymacyclics.com. Accessed 14 March 2006.

— Stanford University. Accessed 14 March 2006.
"Interview: Discovering the Texas molecule"
- - Jonathan Sessler talks to The ''

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Instit ...

'' about what motivated him to discover texaphyrin and about the aims of the companies he co-founded {{DEFAULTSORT:Sessler, Jonathan 1956 births Living people 21st-century American chemists University of Texas at Austin faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences