Biography

Dr. Lisa Ahlberg graduated from Andrews University with a BS in Biochemistry, with Honors. She earned a PhD for research in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Davis in 1997. She was co-author on one of the first papers developing combinatorial chemistry:  a method to rapidly synthesize multiple compounds of potential biological activity. The title of her dissertation is:  Polymer-supported Combinatorial Chemistry:  Small organic library synthesis and detection. While in graduate school she led a session to encourage middle school and high school girls in science. After completing her work at Davis, she did post-doctoral cancer research trying to learn about the interaction between DNA, carcenogens, and metal ions at University of California, San Francisco.

After finishing at UCSF, she moved to an industrial research setting at SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), in Menlo Park, Calif. where she used her organic chemistry and cancer knowledge to help produce compounds in support of a contract funded by the National Cancer Institute.  At SRI, she also supervised members of a team working towards developing lateral flow assays to rapidly detect various potential biological chemical warfare agents.  She has also worked at a small bio tech company, Hermes Biosciences, in South San Francisco. Her research has been published J. Am. Chem. Soc., J. Org. Chem., and Tetrahedron.

In addition to Andrews, she has enjoyed teaching several different chemistry classes and labs, both in California and in the Michiana region.