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Steven D. Wyrick received his B.S. in Pharmacy in 1974 and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 1977 from UNC. After four years of postdoctoral training at UNC and the Chemistry and Life Sciences Group at the Research Triangle Institute, he joined the faculty in UNC's Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products in 1982 as Assistant Professor. Currently an Associate Professor, Dr. Wyrick has been Acting Chairman since 1990. He has won several campus-wide awards for excellence in teaching, as well as the ML. Jacobs Memorial Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry. Among his scientific affiliations are the American Chemical Society, AACP, the International Isotope Society, and the Society for Neuroscience. He holds one US patent, and is the author of 85 scientific papers.
Dr. Wyrick's work involves an integrated approach to rational drug design using molecular modeling, chemical synthesis, and pharmacological testing. Radiochemistry has been a specialty of Dr. Wyrick's and his synthesis of new radiopharmaceuticals has resulted in several seminal contributions to the field. During the past several years, his research has focused on three areas. One area encompasses investigations of the D1 receptor, where, in collaboration with Drs. Mailman, Nichols, and Tropsha, he probed in detail the agonist and antagonist pharmacophore of the DI receptor. Dr. Wyrick's lab has also developed exciting new high affinity ligands for an "orphan receptor" that appears to be sigma like in character, a receptor that has been shown to modulate dopaminergic function. His group has explored the medicinal chemistry and pharmacology of these novel ligands, and has prepared several radioligands of very high affinity for their further study. Finally, Dr. Wyrick's lab has been interested in the astroglial chloride transport (and the structural features necessary for drugs to inhibit such fluxes) as it relates to the edema subsequent to closed head injury.