Dr. Daniel Romo

Dr. Daniel Romo serves as the Schotts Professor of Chemistry in Baylor University’s College of Arts and Sciences. A graduate of Texas A&M University (BA) and Colorado State University (PhD), he was also an American Cancer Society Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, he also directs a research group at Baylor that focuses on the chemistry and biology of natural products and compounds isolated from natural sources (e.g.bacteria, marine sponges), leading to advances in basic cell biology and drug-lead development through numerous local and international collaborations. For 24 years, the Romo Group has explored the de novo chemical synthesis of natural products and simplified, equipotent structural variants that are more readily synthesized – research enabled by funding from the National Institutes of Health (MERIT Award), the National Science Foundation and the Welch Foundation.

As co-director of Baylor’s Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Synthesis and Drug-Lead Discovery Laboratory, Dr. Romo seeks to translate basic discoveries emanating from his research laboratory to early pre-clinical studies and beyond through partnerships with other universities and pharma enabling advances in treatments for human disease including cancer (protein translation inhibitors) and, recently, Alzheimer’s (neuroprotective agents).

Before coming to Baylor, Dr. Romo was Gradipore Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M and director of the TAMU Undergraduate MiniPharma program, which he has now been transplanted to Baylor. The Baylor Undergraduate MiniPharma program is a semi-autonomous, team-oriented approach to undergraduate research involving three teams performing chemical synthesis, molecular modeling and biological testing of a common, anticancer natural product.