Jeffery W. Kelly


Jeffery W. Kelly is an American chemist and entrepreneur who is on the faculty of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Biography

Kelly received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and performed post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University.
He is former Dean of Graduate Studies and Vice President of Academic Affairs and co-Chairman of Molecular Medicine and the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Chemistry within the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. His research focuses on understanding protein folding, misfolding and aggregation and on developing both chemical and biological strategies to ameliorate diseases caused by protein misfolding and/or aggregation.
Kelly has cofounded three biotechnology companies, FoldRx Pharmaceuticals with Susan Lindquist in 2003, Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. with Andrew Dillin and Richard Morimoto in 2010, and Misfolding Diagnostics in 2012.
His lab began looking for ways to inhibit transthyretin fibril formation in the 1990s. Tafamidis was eventually discovered by Kelly's team using a structure-based drug design strategy; the structure was first published in 2003. In 2003 Kelly co-founded FoldRx with Susan Lindquist of MIT and the Whitehead Institute and FoldRx developed tafamidis up through submitting an application for marketing approval in Europe in early 2010. FoldRx was acquired by Pfizer later that year.
Kelly was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, delivered the commencement address at SUNY Fredonia, and has won numerous awards including the American Institute of Chemists Chemical Pioneer Award, 2017; the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, 2016; the Royal Society of Chemistry Jeremy Knowles Award, 2016; the Biopolymers Murray Goodman Memorial Prize, 2012; the American Chemical Society, Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, 2012; the Protein Society Emil T. Kaiser Award, 2011; the American Peptide Society Rao Makineni Lectureship, 2011; the American Peptide Society Vincent du Vigneaud Award, 2008; the National Institutes of Health Merit Award, 2006; the American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, 2001; the SUNY at Fredonia Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, 2000; the SUNY at Fredonia Chemistry Dept. Alumni Award, 2000; the Protein Society-Dupont Young Investigator Award, 1999; the Biophysical Society National Lecturer, 1999; and the Searle Scholar Award, 1991.