Fred Chasalow

Dr. Fred Chasalow studied at leading institutions and was mentored in his research career with leading scientists. Dr. Kaplan literally wrote and edited Methods in Enzymology. Dr. Pharriss was one of the leading scientists at Upjohn for the discovery of prostaglandins. Dr. Lieberman was a leading steroid investigator including the first use of a steroid as a hapten to generate specific antibodies. Dr. Wall discovered taxol and vincristine.

Academic Career: From 1981 to 1995, Dr. Chasalow had a successful academic career and published regularly. His laboratory research activities were funded by his clinical laboratory service. Dr. Chasalow was the first Ph.D. member of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society. He had external grants from the NIH, March of Dimes, and State of New York. In 1991, Dr. Chasalow was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Pediatric Research and Chief of the Pediatric Endocrine Laboratory, at the Maimonides Medical Center of SUNY Brooklyn. At SUNY Brooklyn, house officers from his classes won the award from the Kings County Medical association for the best presentation in two of the three years. Over this period, he made important contributions to clinical endocrinology in growth, sexual development, and diabetes. While Dr. Chasalow had an academic appointment, he served as an editor of Steroids and reviewed papers for many of the endocrine and pediatric journals.

Biotech Research Ventures: In 1991, Dr. Chasalow co-founded AMUR Research. In the course of investigating infants with inherited steroid biosynthetic defects, they identified a syndrome with an unknown defect. AMUR was founded to identify the missing hormone with the premise that it might be a useful drug. Between 1992 and 1998, AMUR raised ~$3M in Series A funding. Wilson Sonsini was the venture advisor to AMUR. At AMUR, Dr. Chasalow served as CEO and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and directed all laboratory activities, including six other doctoral scientists and 17 associates. He showed that the unknown hormone was a steroid phosphocholine ester. This was the first endogenous steroid phosphocholine ester discovered. he established a chemical synthesis group that synthesized the first synthetic steroid phosphocholine ester. As CSO, Dr. Chasalow was personally responsible for 6 patents. In 1998, the availability of venture capital ended. AMUR closed and its technology was purchased by SuperGen.