David W. Christianson

David W. Christianson is an American biochemist.

Christianson earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1983, and remained at Harvard University to complete his master's and doctoral studies in 1985 and 1987, respectively. He was a doctoral student in the research group of William N. Lipscomb. Christianson joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1988, and is the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Christianson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. Christianson's research focuses on enzyme structure, mechanism, and inhibition. His research accomplishments have been recognized by the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1999) and the Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes (2013) from the Biological Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, and the American Chemical Society Philadelphia Section Award (2021). Earlier in his career at Penn, Christianson received the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (1989), a Searle Scholar Award (1989), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1992), and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1993).

Christianson has also been recognized by numerous lectureships in the US and abroad, including the John Wriston Lecture at the University of Delaware (2015), the Pennsylvania Drug Discovery Institute Award Lecture (2018), the Luojia Lecture at Wuhan University (2018), the Chemistry & Biochemistry Distinguished Lecture at UCLA (2023), the Drug Research Academy Lecture at the University of Copenhagen (2024), and the Warwick Structural Biology Lecture at the University of Warwick (2025).

To date, Christianson has published 300 papers and has deposited 569 protein structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Protein structures determined in his research group have been featured five times as the "PDB Molecule of the Month". Christianson was a co-founder of the biopharmaceutical company Arginetix, then Corridor Pharmaceuticals, acquired by AstraZeneca in 2014.

Christianson has also been recognized for his teaching accomplishments with the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (2017) and the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching (2025) from the University of Pennsylvania, and the Inspirational Educator Award from the Rhodes Trust, Oxford University (2019).

Christianson was Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Penn 2018–2023. His approach to academic leadership and research culture was highlighted in Chemistry World, the official newsmagazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Christianson has also explored ethical issues in biomedical research and has criticized the use of intellectually disabled children as clinical test subjects.

Christianson was the Underwood Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and a Visiting Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University (Michaelmas Term, 2006), the Elizabeth S. and Richard M. Cashin Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute (2015-2016), and Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University in 2016. He was also a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, hosted by the University of Tokyo (2025). Christianson is a member of the American Chemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christianson, David W.
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
20th-century American biochemists
21st-century American biochemists
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Harvard College alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni