Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) Activity

Vivian Cody, principal research scientist at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. Inc., and professor in the School of Medicine’s Structural Biology Department at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, will give a talk on “Applications of Structural Biology in Drug Design” on Wednesday, April 14, from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Hamilton Seminar Room, Bldg. 555. The entire BNL community is invited to the talk, which is sponsored by Brookhaven Women in Science.
Cody will discuss her studies of enzyme-drug complexes to design compounds that have potential for treating AIDS-related pneumonia, cancer and thyroid disease. Determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules can provide researchers with important information on how they function. Researchers use this data to design drugs that attack pathogens that cause disease.
After earning a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1969, Cody was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, 1969-1970, and at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Inc. (formerly the Medical Foundation of Buffalo), 1970-1972. She moved through the ranks to become the principal scientist at the institute in 2001. She joined SUNY Buffalo as an associate professor of medicine in 1979, and in 2001, she had risen to her current position.
Cody has won numerous awards for her work, including the SUNY Buffalo Sustained Achievement Award in 2005. A year earlier, she received both the Women of Achievement Award from the Association of University Women and the Women of Distinction honor from the Erie County Commission on the Status of Women. She was also recognized with the YWCA Leadership in the Professions Award in 2002. Cody is a member of Zonta International, a service organization to improve the status of women, and is a member of the Zonta Club of Buffalo.
For more information about the talk, contact Kathy Walker, kwalker@bnl.gov, or Vivian Stojanoff, stojan