October 23, 2025 | This article appears in Volume 61, Issue 3
At the 2025 ASP Annual Meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dr. Amy Wright of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University delivered the Norman R. Farnsworth Research Achievement Award lecture. Wright has had a lengthy and productive scientific career discovering and elucidating the structures of highly bioactive marine natural products. A highly distinctive aspect of her work is that she has largely focused on deep-sea marine invertebrates, as her home institution is one of the few in the world to have access to deep-sea diving vessels. Indeed, she notes that she has made more than 235 dives in the Johnson-SeaLink submersible, which is certainly a record within the field of natural products researchers! She is truly one of the pioneering scientists of our time to explore this unique environment for its wealth of bioactive natural products.
Wright began her academic career in natural products with Professor Jim Simms at UC Riverside (MS and PhD) and then continued with a postdoctoral appointment with Drs. Ken Rinehart and Ken Snader at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. She stayed at Harbor Branch throughout her academic career, working her way up to become director for the Florida Center for Coastal and Human Health, director of the Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology, and research professor in the Marine Biomedical and Biotechnology Research Program as well as research professor at Florida Atlantic University.
Her distinguished career includes over one hundred original research papers, many of which appear in journals of the highest significance and impact, including the Journal of Natural Products. Further, she has published six book chapters and an exceptional 33 US patents. The significance and impact of many of her publications is extremely high, and they have been cited nearly 7,000 times. She was awarded the Florida Atlantic University Researcher of the Year in 2009, inducted as Fellow of the National Academia of Inventors in 2017, became a Fellow of the American Society of Pharmacognosy in 2018 in recognition of her significant and impactful discoveries in the natural products sciences, and received the Paul Scheuer Award at the 2024 Gordon Research Conference on Marine Natural Products.
Wright is one of the finest structure elucidation chemists of our time and has been able to serially discover, structurally characterize and biologically describe many scientifically significant molecules.
Wright is one of the finest structure elucidation chemists of our time and has been able to serially discover, structurally characterize and biologically describe many scientifically significant molecules. For example, she made seminal contributions to the structure determination ET743 (trabectedin) from Ecteinascidia turbinata, one of the truly outstanding pharmaceutical discoveries from the sea, now used to treat soft tissue sarcomas and ovarian cancer in nearly 80 countries worldwide. Other of her flagship discoveries include the antitumor discodermolides (tubulin stabilizers), the macrolide lasonolides (over 70 publications have appeared on this structure class), the diterpene spongiatriol which activates NFK-B and induces apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells, the anti-inflammatory and antiplasmodial topsentins and nortopsentins, the potent spindle poison leiodermatolide, and many others.
Wright has provided significant service to the American Society of Pharmacognosy through her frequent scholarly contributions to the Journal of Natural Products, current service on the Executive Committee for the society, her help to organize two annual ASP meetings, and her election as President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy in 2022. Wright has also been highly involved in the mentorship of students of marine natural products chemistry and pharmacology at a variety of levels, spanning those at the beginning of their careers to those at the more senior level of postdoctoral scientist. Wright’s service to the discipline of natural products extends to other outlets as well, including service on many grant-review and advisory boards; indeed, she has been a highly influential spokesperson and leader in the field of natural products science.
Congratulations, Amy, for this highly deserved award from the broad community of natural products scientists! 