Biography

Dr. McChesney has more than 55 years of research and development experience in natural products. He is Founder and Principal and serves as Chairman of Cloaked Therapeutics, LLC which was founded to clinically develop the TumorSelect technology discovered and patented by Arbor Therapeutics, LLC, a research and discovery company established by him to research and discover a means to significantly improve clinical therapy of cancer. Specifically, a strategy to enhance selectivity and reduce the toxic side-effect profile of cancer chemotherapeutics is under active development at Cloaked Therapeutics. Previously he established Ironstone Separations, Inc in Oxford, MS for the development of improved preparative chromatography methods to support commercial development of natural product compounds and served as Chief Scientific Officer of Natural Products for ChromaDex, Inc. Having received a B.S. in Chemical Technology from Iowa State University, M.A. in Botany, and Doctorate in Organic Chemistry focusing on Natural Products from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Dr. McChesney took a faculty position at the University of Kansas. He has a long, distinguished teaching career as professor of Botany and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas, and then as professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Mississippi. He also served as an advisor to the World Health Organization on Traditional Medicines and anti-malarial drug development, and to UNESCO in Natural Products Chemistry. In 1985, he taught natural products chemistry in Brazil as a Fulbright Fellow. From 1978 to 1986, he chaired the Department of Pharmacognosy at Ole Miss. From 1986 to 1995 he was Director of the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Ole Miss and in that capacity he conceived and implemented the establishment of the National Center for Natural Products Research on the University of Mississippi Campus. The National Center is a state-of-the-art research and development facility of greater than 200,000 square feet for studying and supporting development of natural products. In 1986-87 he was President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy, the premier organization of natural products researchers in the world. In 2016, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Pharmacognosy. In 1993 Dr. McChesney was named F.A.P. Barnard Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi. In 1995 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his contributions to the development of Artemisinin based anti-malarials. While at Ole Miss, Dr. McChesney discovered a new 8-aminoquinoline analog showing broad anti-infective activity against malaria, leishmania, and pneumocystis pneumonia without the usual attendant toxicity profile of the class. NPC 1161 is in final preclinical development and is slated to enter clinical trials in the near future. He retired from academia in 1996 to take a position as Vice President of Research and Development at NaPro Biotherapeutics, Inc., a natural product pharmaceutical company. In that role Jim developed an integrated strategy combining isolation and semi-synthesis for the economic production of paclitaxel from plantation grown Taxus biomass. In 2003 NaPro changed its name to Tapestry Pharmaceuticals and sold its development group to ChromaDex and Jim went along as CSO of the group while retaining his position as CSO of Natural Products Chemistry at Tapestry. As CSO of Tapestry, Jim designed a next generation taxane, TPI 287, overcoming many clinical limitations of the current clinically approved taxanes. TPI 287 is currently in Phase II clinical trials. During his career he has received numerous awards and accolades. In 2014, he was awarded the International Conference on the Science of Botanicals award “Outstanding Contribution in Natural Products Research”. In 2016 Jim was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Pharamacognosy. In 2018 he was selected by Marquis Who’s Who recognizing his life time achievements in Natural Products Research and Development.

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Research Interest

His research interests include the chemistry, metabolism, function and production of biologically active organic natural products, bioanalytical chemistry of natural products and drugs, chemotherapy of tropical diseases, and the control of plant growth and development. Most recently he has focused on development of biologically active natural products as pharmaceuticals, especially as anti-infectives and cancer chemotherapeutics. The establishment in 2011 of Arbor Therapeutics, LLC will facilitate these development efforts. In March of 2014 Cloaked Therapeutics, LLC was founded to clinically develop the TumorSelect technology discovered and patented by Arbor Therapeutics, LLC. Dr. McChesney has been a member of the American Chemical Society for more than 50 years. He has received more than $40 million of funding from the NIH, NSF, WHO, FDA, and USDA. As a recognized expert in medicinal plant and natural product development, he frequently lectures giving numerous regional, national, and international invited lectures, and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 60 patents.