Alexander (Leggy) Arnold, PhD

Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer

Alexander (Leggy) Arnold is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and a founding member of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) under supervision of Nobel Laureate Professor Ben Feringa in 2002. His research resulted in the development of one of the most selective catalyst for enantioselective 1,4-additions and other asymmetric reactions (CAS 209482-27-9 and 209482-28-0 with more than 450 citations). He also introduced the first catalytic enantioselective methodology to synthesize prostaglandins. His postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco under supervision of Prof. Kip Guy led to the discovery of the first transcriptional modulators inhibiting the interactions between the thyroid receptor and coregulators.

In 2005, Dr. Arnold started to work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a Staff Scientist and was responsible for a number of high throughput screens, validation of hit compounds, development of lead compounds, and preclinical profiling of drug candidates.

He joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2009 and was promoted to Professor in 2020. Dr. Arnold’s current research interests are focused on the discovery and development of new drugs targeting the vitamin D receptor and the GABA(A) receptor to develop new treatments for ovarian cancer, asthma, and neuropathic pain. He has published 89 peer-reviewed articles, four book chapters, and holds two allowed patents. Dr. Arnold is an expert in drug discovery and has been working with the NIH Chemical Genomic Center and their probe discovery program for more than nine years.