Eileen J. Kennedy, PhD
Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Chair at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
United States
Dr. Eileen Kennedy is the Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Division Chair for Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC. Prior to this, she served as the Georgia Athletic Association Professor at the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy. She received her PhD from UCSD, where she studied allosteric regulation of kinases in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. As a postdoctoral fellow in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, her research focused on the development of constrained peptide scaffolds as disruptors for protein-protein interactions. She joined the faculty in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences at UGA in 2010. Her lab largely focuses on the development of constrained peptides that target regulatory mechanisms for kinases as they relate to disease. She has published numerous studies focusing on the Parkinson’s-related kinase, LRRK2, and exploring alternative approaches for targeted inhibition as novel strategies for therapeutic development.