People

John A. Porco, Jr. – Director – Professor Porco joined the Department of Chemistry at Boston University in 1999 as Assistant Professor after a successful stint in venture capital/biotech and was rapidly promoted to Professor of Chemistry in September 2004. In 2002, he successfully led an effort to establish the Center for Chemical Methodology and Library Development at Boston University (CMLD-BU). In 2014, the CMLD-BU was transitioned to the Center for Molecular Discovery (BU-CMD) (https://www.bu.edu/cmd), an integrated infrastructure for the discovery of small molecule chemical probes and medicinal chemistry. Since beginning his research program at Boston University in 1999, he and his colleagues have published over 250 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and presented over 175 invited seminars at universities, pharmaceutical companies, and conferences. In 2021, Professor Porco created the BU Target Discovery Laboratory (BU-TDL) which develops proteomics methods for systematic identification of the protein targets of bioactive leads from compound screens to characterize mode-of-action and structure-activity relationships. In 2024, the BU-TDL was renamed the BU-TDPL to coincide with expansion of capabilities of proteomics experiments for the Center.

Melissa R. Pergande – Associate Director – Professor Pergande joined the Department of Chemistry at Boston University in 2024 as an Assistant Professor. She received her B.S. (Biochemistry) and M.S. (Chemistry) from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, her Ph.D. (Chemistry) from University of Illinois Chicago and carried out postdoctoral training at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests lie at the intersection of analytical chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and human health. Her lab uses mass spectrometry to study neurodegenerative disorders and glial cell biology. She is also very active in the mass spectrometry proteomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics communities.

Stanley I. Goldstein – Graduate Student – Stan received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at Northeastern University in 2013. After finishing college, he worked at Infinity Pharmaceuticals and then at Biogen, where he used mass spectrometry to study drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Interested in learning more about drug mechanisms, he entered BU’s PhD program in Biomolecular Pharmacology in the Fall of 2020 and joined the Porco Research Group/BU-TDPL in the Summer of 2022. Stan’s research is focused on the development and application of proteomics-based tools for target identification.