Bill Gerwick

Bill Gerwick, PhD is a Distinguished Professor of Oceanography and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California, San Diego. His research is focused on exploring the unique naturally occurring molecules of marine algae and cyanobacteria for biomedical properties that are useful in treating cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases, as well as agricultural use.

Dr. Gerwick received his bachelor of science in biochemistry from the University of California Davis in 1976 and his doctorate in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD in 1981. He held a postdoctoral position in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Connecticut, and then advanced through the ranks to become full professor in 1992 at the College of Pharmacy, Oregon State University. In 2005 he returned to La Jolla to hold a joint professorship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Dr. Gerwick has presented more than 200 invited lectures and published in excess of 250 scholarly scientific works and book chapters on marine natural products drug discovery and biosynthesis. He has served on the National Institutes of Health Review Committee for natural products research (2003-2007), was the elected Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Marine Natural Products Chemistry (1996), the elected president of the American Society of Pharmacognosy (2002-3), and received the UCSD Chancellor’s Associates Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering in 2011.