Timothy J. Cardozo, MD, PhD

My research is primarily focused on computational molecular design of drugs and vaccines. The broad aim of this work is to uncover reliable relationships between the molecular structures of biomolecules and drugs and the effects of these molecules on human physiology. 

One particular area of interest is the design of biologic drugs and vaccines. We integrate protein engineering, structural biology, computational chemistry, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence/data science to derive the structure-activity relationships with biochemical, cellular, animal and clinical data, which guide the molecular design. I have played a leading role in the design of novel HIV vaccines focused on the apex of the virus envelope spike protein, and my laboratory has published several visualizations of large or dynamic molecular complexes that unify disparate biochemical and cellular observations.

Another area of interest is the design of small molecule drugs. For this research, we integrate computational chemistry, cheminformatics, synthetic chemistry, biochemical and cellular assays and pharmacology.  In recent years, my laboratory has also begun to explore novel modulators of a wide range of ion channels that are important in human disease, including the Nav, Cav and KATP families and mechanosensitive channels. These investigations have been enabled by access to significant electrophysiological and cryo-electron microscopy resources in the field and at NYU Langone Health.

My colleagues and I are actively engaged in the development of our molecular designs as drugs. This has engaged my laboratory with highly collaborative teams spanning work in preclinical animal models of disease and clinical data, as well as strategic work on intellectual property and commercialization. The disease areas in which we have candidate drugs in development include cancer, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, neuropsychiatric disease and cardiovascular disease.