Interested in the medical field since his undergraduate years at the Ohio State University, Dr. Thomas R. Bailey took chemistry courses in his initial pursuit of medical school. During his studies, he discovered his love for organic chemistry and began working in his own laboratory at Ohio State at the age of 20, where he worked under Professor Leo A. Paquette. There, his professor took notice of his learning style and informed him that the best way to learn chemistry was to simply do it. During his studies at Ohio State, he was an author on five published works and later went on to attend graduate school.
After receiving a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1983, Dr. Bailey served as a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University in Fort Collins for two years before relocating to New York, where he was a senior research chemist at Sterling-Winthrop, Inc., until 1988. Progressing through the ranks at Sterling-Winthrop, he then became a senior research investigator and principal research investigator at both their Rensselaer, New York, and Collegeville, Pennsylvania, offices. From 2004 to 2011, he served as a senior scientist II at Cephalon, Inc.
Currently, Dr. Bailey has been serving as president of TR Bailey Consulting LLC in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, since 2012. During his longstanding career, he has contributed 40 articles to professional journals and is an inventor on 51 U.S. patents, with his most recent being filed in December 2018. He has also invented the smallpox drug Tecovirimat. Likewise, he is a reviewer for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
Affiliated with the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Chemical Society, Dr. Bailey cites his invention of Tecovirimat as a highlight of his career. He and his team were testing and identifying the series, coming up with the molecule within a 12-month period. He notes that the accomplishment was the result of excellent teamwork, and the discovery of a drug and nomination to a development candidate was rarely seen within such a short period of time.
Dr. Bailey is a past member of the Church of the Epiphany and enjoys reading, gardening and stamp collecting in his spare time. Looking toward the future, he sees himself being an independent consultant, where he can help small to medium-sized companies as a drug substance subject matter expert.
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