Alumni Profile - Dr. John Tokarski

Edison Award Recognizes Dr. Tokarski’s Work on Promising Autoimmune Treatment

Dr. John Tokarski, a Bristol Myers Squibb principal investigator, worked on a team probing a target important in psoriasis, lupus, and potentially Crohn’s disease. The researchers developed a molecule that blocks a kinase enzyme in a highly specific, novel way. Now in Phase III clinical tests, that molecule earned Tokarski’s team a 2019 Edison Patent Award from the Research Council of New Jersey.

“We were very excited,” Tokarski said. “First because the award is honoring what they say is the best and brightest patent innovations in the state of New Jersey. And it’s named in honor of Thomas Edison … one of the greatest inventors of all time.”

Tokarski took a winding path to his current research. Today, he focuses on the computational side of drug development, modeling potential drugs and targets. But he started in the pharmacy.

After earning bachelors’ degrees in chemistry at Loyola and pharmacy at UIC, Tokarski staffed a Walgreens pharmacy for four years. But, missing the thrill of scientific discovery, he returned to UIC, this time for a medicinal chemistry doctorate. “I went to the opposite end of the spectrum, from dispensing medicine to working as early in the process of finding drugs as you can get,” he said.

Tokarski nearly missed out on that path, though. Originally aiming for a PharmD, he chanced upon a Loyola classmate at the UIC Pharmacy building before an exam. That colleague, pursuing a PhD, clued Tokarski in on the exciting research possibilities of the PhD track. So Tokarski switched. “If I had been there in the building five minutes earlier or later, I might not have run into him, and I never would have gone this route.”

That road-not-taken happenstance also made possible Tokarski’s work at UIC under Professor Anton Hopfinger, who’s been called “a founding father of computational chemistry.” From Hopfinger, Tokarski learned how to solve problems creatively, he said. Employing that creative problem-solving daily, Tokarski has seen a number of his molecules make their way to the clinic. He and his team now hope their award-winning drug goes the distance, so it can help those patients with autoimmune diseases who’ve long awaited effective treatments.

JOHN TOKARSKI · BS ’84, PHD ’96