Andrew G. Tennyson

Biography

Dr. Tennyson received his S.B. with Honors in chemistry and S.M. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2003. He earned his Ph.D. in bioinorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 and was a postdoctoral fellow in organic & organometallic chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin from 2008-2010. Dr. Tennyson joined Clemson University in 2010 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET), and in 2012 he received a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Research Interest

Increasingly drug-resistant diseases pose an significant threat to public health and safety. Tuberculosis (TB), for example, has been causing disease and death in humans for nearly 5 millennia. By the 19th century, TB was responsible for almost one-fourth of all deaths in Europe. Development of streptomycin in 1946 significantly decreased its incidence and mortality rate, but recent TB strains are no longer affected by this treatment. The objective of this research is to develop compounds that will be effective against diseases that are resistant to all front-line drugs. We hypothesize that organometallic complexes will be effective against multidrug resistant diseases such as TB and methicillin-resistant stapholycoccus aureus.