Douglas Behenna, PhD

Douglas Behenna is senior director of Medicinal Chemistry at Eli Lilly and Company, where he leads drug discovery efforts. Behenna earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania before completing his Ph.D. in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in 2001. His doctoral research, supervised in the group focused on natural product synthesis and asymmetric catalysis, developed progress toward the synthesis of (+)-Zoanthenol and established an asymmetric Tsuji allylation reaction—a palladium-catalyzed method for constructing complex carbon frameworks with high stereoselectivity. He went on to a career in pharmaceutical research, applying synthetic chemistry to the discovery of small-molecule drug candidates at Eli Lilly.