Ariel Fernandez

Fernandez received Licentiate degrees in Chemistry (1979) and Mathematics (1980) from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina.[1] He then earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1984 with a thesis entitled Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes[2][1]

Fernandez held the Karl F. Hasselmann Professorship of Bioengineering at Rice University until 2011.[3] He is a member of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina.[4]

Fernandez developed the concept of the dehydron, an adhesive structural defect in a soluble protein that promotes its own dehydration.[5] The nonconserved nature of protein dehydrons has implications for drug discovery, as dehydrons may be targeted by highly specific drugs/ligands.[6] This technology was applied by Fernandez and collaborators to design a new compound based on the anticancer drug Gleevec, in order to remove its potential cardiotoxicity.[7][8]

Fernandez was awarded the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar in 1991;[9] a Guggenheim fellowship in 1995;[10] and was an Elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2006).[11]

• Transformative Concepts for Drug Design: Target Wrapping, by Ariel Fernández (ISBN 978-3642117916, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010).
• Biomolecular Interfaces, by Ariel Fernández Stigliano (ISBN 978-3319168494, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2015).
• Physics at the Biomolecular Interface, by Ariel Fernández (ISBN 978-3319308517, Springer International Publishing AG, Switzerland, 2016).
• A Mathematical Approach to Protein Biophysics, by L. Ridgeway Scott and Ariel Fernández (ISBN 978-3319660318, Springer, 2017).
• Artificial Intelligence Platform for Molecular Targeted Therapy: A Translational Science Approach, by Ariel Fernández (ISBN 978-9811232305, World Scientific Publishing Co., 2021).