Greg Phelps was introduced to St. Jude as an undergraduate research assistant at Arkansas State University. While collaborating with the St. Jude Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics, he learned the history of the hospital and realized the endless possibilities that science has to offer. This experience led him to the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences with the hope of contributing to that history.
Phelps earned bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and chemistry in 2015 from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2019 from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in Memphis, Tennessee. During pharmacy school, he worked to uncover novel agents to treat drug resistant and chronic infections in immunocompromised patients in the lab of Richard Lee, PhD, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics. He earned his master's degree from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in May 2021.
Phelps currently works in the Lee lab where he focuses on identifying, characterizing and optimizing novel therapeutics for the treatment of mucormycosis-causing zygomycetes and drug-resistant nontuberculous mycobacteria. As a researcher and licensed pharmacist, he hopes to utilize his skill set synergistically for the development of new chemical probes and drugs to treat problematic infections in vulnerable patients.
“Renowned scientists from all over the world walk the halls of St. Jude,” he says. “The opportunity to learn from them through lectures and grand rounds was a difficult opportunity to pass up. Top this with world-class facilities and resources and you have a graduate student’s paradise.”
Hometown: Cabot, AR
Honors and Awards
- 2018 Walmart Scholar- American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP)
Publications
Griffith EC, Wallace MJ, Wu Y, Kumar G, Gajewski S, Jackson P, Phelps GA, Zheng Z, Rock CO, Lee RE and White SW. The Structural and Functional Basis for Recurring Sulfa Drug Resistance Mutations in Staphylococcus aureus Dihydropteroate Synthase. Front. Microbiol 9:1369, 2018.
Phelps GA, Qiao Y, Buckley MG, Wang J, Li MS, Bhuyan SS, Chisholm-Burns MA. Effects of the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines on racial and ethnic disparities in statin treatment among diabetics. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy 16(4):544-52, 2019.
Wallace MJ, Dharuman S, Fernando DM, Reeve SM, Gee CT, Yao J, Griffith EC, Phelps GA, Wright WC, Elmore JM, Lee RB. Discovery and Characterization of the Antimetabolite Action of Thioacetamide-Linked 1, 2, 3-Triazoles as Disruptors of Cysteine Biosynthesis in Gram-Negative Bacteria. ACS Infectious Diseases 6(3):467-78, 2019.