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Steven D. Townsend
Born
Detroit
Alma materVanderbilt University
Oakland University
Martin Luther King High School
Scientific career
InstitutionsVanderbilt University
ThesisStudies Toward the Total Synthesis of Bielschowskysin (2010)
Doctoral advisorGary A. Sulikowski

Steven D'Wayne Townsend is a professor of organic chemistry at Vanderbilt University. He investigates the chemistry of human breast milk. In 2019 Townsend was selected as one of Chemical & Engineering News Talented 12.

Early life and education

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Steve Townsend was born in Detroit in 1983. He graduated from Martin Luther King High School in 2001 before starting an undergraduate degree in chemistry at Oakland University. At Oakland he was a Keeper of the Dream scholar and worked with Amanda Bryant-Friedrich, a toxicologist. He completed his bachelor's degree in 2005 and was awarded the American Chemical Society Outstanding Graduating Senior Award and the Alfred G Wilson Founders Medal - an award that recognizes a senior who has given significant contributions as a scholar, a leader, and a responsible citizen of the institution. In 2005, he matriculated to Vanderbilt University, joining the laboratory of Gary Sulikowski. He was supported by predoctoral fellowships from the United Negro College Fund and Pfizer.[1] After completing his doctoral education at Vanderbilt, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with Samuel J. Danishefsky at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia University. He is an initiated member of Phi Beta Sigma, a predominantly African American Fraternity founded in 1914.

Research and career

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Steve joined Columbia University as a postdoctoral scholar, working in the laboratory of Samuel Danishefsky. Whilst living in New York he noticed that in wealthy neighbourhoods there were adverts for breastfeeding, whilst in poor neighbourhoods there were adverts for formula. He became interested in women's health disparities and the science of human breast milk. He started to investigate milk sugars (Human Milk Oligosaccharides, HMOs) and identified that they help infants fight disease.[2][3] HMOs are prebiotics and help to promote colonisation of the intestine with good bacteria.[4][5] Townsend was the first to show that HMOs prevent the formation of group B streptococcus and that they can even exert antimicrobial activity.[6][7] He was awarded the Ruth A. Lawrence Investigator Award for his work in human milk science.

Since Townsend's observation that oligosaccharides were crucial for antibacterial defence and to support infection-fighting proteins the oligosaccharide 2′-fucosyllactose has been included in a number of products.[8] Townsend went on to show that whilst 2′-fucosyllactose is in the breast milk of the majority of white women, black and Latina women do not necessarily produce the sugar. Townsend is investigating how the balance of HMOs impacts an infant's microbiome.[9]

Townsend was appointed an independent researcher at Vanderbilt University in 2014. He was awarded the Chancellor's Research Award in 2018 and made a Dean's Faculty Fellow in 2019.

Awards and honours

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References

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  1. ^ "38 Students Receive Prestigious UNCF/Merck Science Initiative Award – Press Releases on CSRwire.com". www.csrwire.com. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  2. ^ Craft, Kelly M.; Gaddy, Jennifer A.; Townsend, Steven D. (2018-08-02). "Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) Sensitize Group B Streptococcus to Clindamycin, Erythromycin, Gentamicin, and Minocycline on a Strain Specific Basis". ACS Chemical Biology. 13 (8): 2020–2026. doi:10.1021/acschembio.8b00661. ISSN 1554-8929. PMID 30071726. S2CID 206528243.
  3. ^ "Synthesizing mothers' milk". Chemical & Engineering News. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  4. ^ Breastmilk Sugars Found to Fight Bacteria, 20 August 2017, archived from the original on 2019-09-28, retrieved 2019-09-27
  5. ^ "Sugars in Human Breast Milk Act as Antibacterial Agents". HowStuffWorks. 2017-08-28. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  6. ^ "Sugars in some breast milk could help protect babies from group B strep". American Chemical Society. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  7. ^ asd, qwe. "Steven D. Townsend". www.goldlearning.com. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  8. ^ a b "NSF Award Search: Award#1847804 - CAREER: Bioorganic Investigation of Human Milk Oligosaccharide Modulation of Group B Streptococcus". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  9. ^ a b "Steven D. Townsend". Chemical & Engineering News. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  10. ^ "Wilson". OU-News-Page. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  11. ^ "Ruth A. Lawrence Investigator Award - ICHMSI". humanmilkscience.org. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  12. ^ "Faculty and Graduate Student Awards". College of Arts and Science. Archived from the original on 2019-03-29. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  13. ^ "Chancellor's Award for Research".
  14. ^ "ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award Winners Announced". ACS Axial. 2019-04-24. Archived from the original on 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  15. ^ "2020 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards". Dreyfus Foundation. 2020-04-27. Retrieved 2021-06-10.
  16. ^ "2021 Fellows | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation".
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