Philip Williams

Philip Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research is centered on the discovery and characterization of bioactive natural products from marine organisms, with a focus on developing new methodologies for structure elucidation using advanced NMR techniques.

Education:

• B.Sc., University of Calgary, Canada
• Ph.D., University of Hawaii at Manoa (2003)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (2003–2006)

Research Focus:

Williams leads a multidisciplinary program that explores marine natural product chemistry. His group isolates and structurally characterizes small molecules from marine organisms, aiming to identify novel therapeutic leads for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. A significant part of his work involves refining NMR-based methodologies for stereochemical assignment at sub-micromolar scales.

Current Research Directions:

• Exploring chemical defenses in marine cyanobacteria and sponges
• Developing NMR strategies for stereochemical determination of trace metabolites
• Evaluating marine natural products against cancer cell lines and Alzheimer’s disease models

Recent Publications:

His recent work has uncovered new oxazoline and sesquiterpenoid natural products with promising bioactivities, alongside collaborative studies on flavonoid neuroprotective agents. These publications highlight a consistent theme of integrating innovative spectroscopic approaches with bioassay-guided isolation.

Students & Collaborators:

Williams supervises a diverse group of graduate and undergraduate researchers, including Cain, Haglund, Hyvl, Kaiser, Kumashiro, Jarrett, Jensen, Raston, Sun, Tius, Zhang, and Sattasathuchana. He is also an active participant in the Natural Products Cancer Biology program at the University of Hawaii.