Dr. Christian Melander
North Carolina State University
Department of Chemistry
527A Dabney Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-8204
phone: 919-513-2960
fax: 919-515-5079
e mail: ccmeland@ncsu.edu
Education
1998 Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, Columbia University.
Advisor: David Horne
1994 B.S. in Chemistry, University of California, Davis.
Advisor: Mark Kurth
Professional
8/2010-Present, Associate Professor, North Carolina State
University
7/2004-8/2010 Assistant Professor, North Carolina State
University
10/2002-6/2004 Postdoctoral Associate, The Scripps Research
Institute.
Advisor: Joel Gottesfeld
2/2001-9/2002 Lead Scientist, Chemical Synthesis group,
Xencor
8/1998-1/2001 Postdoctoral Scholar, the California
Institute of Technology
Advisor: Peter Dervan
BIO
Christian Melander received a B.S. in Chemistry with departmental honors from UC Davis in 1994 where he worked under the direction of Professor Mark Kurth developing combinatorial approaches to small molecule libraries. He subsequently received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, supported by an NIH chemistry and biology-training grant, studying with Professor David Horne at Columbia University where he investigated the catalytic potential of nucleic acid bases. From 1998-2001 Christian was an NIH postdoctoral scholar at Caltech under the direction of Professor Peter Dervan studying the sequence-specific recognition of DNA with pyrrole/imidazole polyamides. Christian then directed the organic synthesis department at Xencor, Inc. in Monrovia, CA as a Lead Scientist from February of 2001 until September of 2002. He returned to academic research as a Research Associate at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Professor Joel Gottesfeld in the Department of Molecular Biology from 2002-2004. At Scripps, Christian utilized pyrrole/imidazole polyamides to explore potential therapeutics for both colon cancer and Friedrich’s ataxia. In July of 2004, Christian accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University in the Department of Chemistry and in August, 2010 was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. At NCSU, Christian’s research is focused on 1) defining small molecules that control bacterial behavior and 2) small molecule-coated nanoparticles that have antibacterial and antiviral properties. During his independent career, Christian has received the Sigma Xi faculty research award, the NCSU Entrepreneur of the Year award, and the Industrial Innovation Award from the Southeastern ACS.