NIDA’s Newman Honored with Lectureship

Dr. Amy Newman receives the 2016 Philip S. Portoghese Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship from Dr. Phil Portoghese.

Dr. Amy Newman of the National Institute on Drug Abuse has been selected as the 2016 recipient of the seventh Philip S. Portoghese Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship from the American Chemical Society’s division of medicinal chemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 

The award is named in honor of Dr. Phil Portoghese, the long-standing editor-in-chief of the journal, and honors the contributions of an individual who has had a major impact on medicinal chemistry research. The award was presented to Newman on Aug. 23 at the 252nd national American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia. 

Newman joined the Intramural Research Program at NIDA in 1991 and is currently deputy scientific director as well as chief of the Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch and the medicinal chemistry section. Her research focuses on the design and synthesis of small molecules to study mechanisms underlying drug abuse and to identify targets for medication discovery. She has coauthored more than 240 original articles and reviews on the topic. She is also an inventor on 12 U.S. patents or patent applications. She is the first woman to receive this award.