Ariel Fernandez
Ariel Fernandez is an Argentinian–American physical chemist and pharmaceutical researcher.
Education and early career
Fernandez received Licentiate degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina. He then earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1984 with a thesis entitled ''Structural Stability of Chemical Systems at Critical Regimes''Career
Fernandez held the Karl F. Hasselmann Professorship of Bioengineering at Rice University until 2011. He is a member of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina.Fernandez developed the concept of the dehydron, an adhesive structural defect in a soluble protein that promotes its own dehydration. The nonconserved nature of protein dehydrons has implications for drug discovery, as dehydrons may be targeted by highly specific drugs/ligands. This technology was applied by Fernandez and collaborators to design a new compound based on the anticancer drug Gleevec, in order to reduce its cardiotoxicity. In laboratory tests, the new compound was similar to Gleevec in inhibiting gastrointestinal stromal tumors, but without toxic effects on cardiac cells, although it lacked Gleevec's inhibitory effects on leukemia cells.
The editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences retracted a January 2006 paper coauthored by Fernandez because it had "substantial overlap", without attribution, of figures and text from an article by Fernandez published in Structure the previous month, a form of duplicate publication. The website Retraction Watch has documented incidences of scientific concerns about some of Fernandez's other publications, claims that Fernandez has denied.