Dr. William Gutheil has been with UMKC’s School of Pharmacy since 2000. He is an Associate Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and he earned tenure in 2004.
Some of Dr. Gutheil’s achievements while at UMKC include: a $235,000 grant used to purchase spectrometry instruments, Teacher of the Year Award for PharmD classes of 2009 and 2010 (both awarded in 2005-06), an Apple Polisher Award, several patents in peptide chemistry and drug discovery, and grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and UM Research Board.
“Our current research interests is in the general area of bacterial peptidoglycan (cell wall) biosynthesis,” he said. “We are currently studying methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE), two pathogenic and drug resistant pathogens of high public health concern using these methods.”
Dr. Gutheil’s background is in Biochemistry (BS) and Chemistry (Ph.D.), so he feels that Pharmaceutical Sciences was a natural fit for his teaching and research interests.
“My teaching and research are at the crossroads between basic and applied sciences, and also between the chemical, physical, and biological sciences. The rapid advances occurring in these areas is exciting to observe and to participate in,” he said. “Our research requires skills in quite a few areas, including bacteriology, chemical synthesis, analytical chemistry, and statistics. We also use structural and molecular biology databases and tools. I interact with my students on a daily basis to guide them through these areas. For the first 2-3 years students are simply learning the basics in these areas, and can then begin really doing research.”
Dr. Gutheil is motivated by his own curiosities.
“I am always wondering about how things, like bacterial cell wall biosynthesis, work,” he said. “I want to keep advancing our research – with the hope that we will unravel some of the mysteries of bacterial cell wall biosynthesis and contribute in some way to addressing the urgent need for new antibacterial agents. I have also spent quite a bit of effort in bringing advance LC-MS technologies into our department and UMKC, and hope to be able to continue advancing our capabilities in this key area of technology for chemical and life sciences research.”
For students who wish to become faculty in the future, Dr. Gutheil says it is important to gain breadth and depth of understanding in your chosen discipline, and choose a Post-doctoral position where you can see the science in that discipline being performed at a high and broad level.
“It is also important to learn continuously from related disciplines, and to learn and use new technologies as much as possible,” he said. “Finally, the choice of research topic is very important, especially regarding funding. When I first selected antibacterial agent research as my focus I had expected funding would be much better than it has been given the issue of resistance to commonly used agents. It has been nearly 20 years, and only recently has this area become a national priority.”