LAURENCE H. HURLEY, Howard J. Schaeffer Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, The University of Arizona, Tucson, was born in 1944 in Birmingham, England. He received his B.Pharm. (Honors) in 1967 from Bath University and his Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry) in 1970 from Purdue University.

Dr. Hurley’s present research interests are in the areas of design and development of antitumor agents. Over the last twenty years, work from his laboratory has led to elucidation of the structures of the drug–receptor complexes for seven different groups of compounds that are potentially useful in the treatment of cancer. In cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry, several drugs developed with the aid of these studies have been evaluated in phase I and II clinical trials. Most recently, his research has centered on secondary DNA structures, particularly G-quadruplexes as gene targets for drug design. A first-in-class G-quadruplex-interactive compound developed from technology and a lead compound licensed from The University of Arizona and The University of Texas was advanced into phase II clinical trials by Cylene Pharmaceuticals in 2007.

Dr. Hurley has been a consultant to a number of pharmaceutical companies and is currently a Senior Editor for Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He is now also a member of the NCI Scientific Board of Councilors. He is a recipient of the 1988 George Hitchings Award in Innovative Methods in Drug Design, the 1989 Volwiler Research Achievement Award from the American Association of College of Pharmacy. He is the recipient of the 1992 APhA Research Achievement Award in Medicinal Chemistry and the 1994 American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Award. In 2005 he was awarded the George & Christine Sosnovsky Award in Cancer Therapy by the Royal Society of Chemistry, and in 2007 he was inducted into the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame. He is also the recipient of a number of lectureships, including the 2001 Frank Rose Memorial Lecture at the British Association for Cancer Research. In 1996 he was awarded a D.Sc. degree from Bath University.