Dr. Tony Barbosa is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and past Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Ave Maria University. At AMU, in addition to teaching chemistry/biochemistry courses, he works collaboratively with fellow faculty and students to design new treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Barbosa also holds a position outside the university as the Vice President of Research for Allosite Therapeutics where he oversees discovery efforts to develop breakthrough medicines, both small molecule and biologics, to treat solid tumors, lupus/lupus nephritis, kidney disease, muscular dystrophy, and inflammatory bowel diseases.
Dr. Barbosa has greater than twenty-five years of experience in drug discovery and development. He is the recipient of three NIH SBIR grants: 1R43AI179510 (2023) Integrin-Targeted Novel Oral Therapeutics for Lupus Nephritis - Co-Investigator ($306,500), 1R43AI100499 (2013) - Medicinal Chemistry Based Optimization of Lead Compounds Against Multiple Sclerosis ($600,000), and NIH Niche Assessment Program NIH1063TN (2014) for 1R43AI100499 (~$150,000). He is also the recipient of a Florida Cancer Innovation Fund grant to study the development of Myeloid-Targeted Immunotherapy to Treat Breast Cancer ($750,000, 2024) an Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer's Disease Research Program grant through the Florida State Department of Health 8AZ01 ($100,000). His focus has been in the fields of oncology and immunology & inflammation targeting diseases such as lupus/lupus nephritis, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn’s disease.
Prior to his time at Allosite Therapeutics, Dr. Barbosa was Director of Chemistry at Adhaere Pharmaceuticals where he led efforts which moved their immuno-oncology lead CD11b/CD18 (Mac-1) agonist up to clinical trials for solid tumors. (http://bit.ly/cancerclinicaltrial) Adhaere Pharmaceuticals was then purchased by Gossamer Bio, Inc. which took the drug into clinical trials for pancreatic, esophageal, gastric, triple negative breast, castration-resistant prostate, and microsatellite stable colorectal cancers. Dr. Barbosa has extensive experience with medicinal chemistry efforts to balance optimization of efficacy, pharmacokinetics (PK) and ADME-T (adsorption, dissolution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) properties.
Before working at Adhaere Pharma, Dr. Barbosa worked at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals on several classes of protein targets such as cell surface adhesion molecules (integrins), GPCRs and kinases where he is responsible for a SoPD (start of pre-development) for the integrin CD11a/CD18 (LFA-1) project. Dr. Barbosa then moved to a small pharmaceutical company, CGI Pharmaceuticals, where in addition to his in-house medicinal chemistry efforts, he was also responsible for designing scientific work for and communicating with outsourced partners internationally.
Dr. Barbosa works closely with students to help prepare them for their lives post-graduation. He has committed significant effort to organizing a web site, DrBarbosa.com, to guide students through their plans to apply for summer internships, enter graduate school, and attend medical school or other health related fields.
Dr. Barbosa has been married for greater than 26 years to his wife, Valerie. He is also a proud father of four children. His oldest son, Antonio, is an assistant editor at EWTN in Alabama. His daughter, Grace Angel, is a graduate of AMU with a double major in Music and Accounting. He also has two teen age sons, Maximilian and John, with whom he spends time enjoying the outdoors.
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