Jose A. Villegas
Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences
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About
Teaching and Supervision
PSCI Ph.D. Thesis Research (PSCI 46139), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
Special Topics Pharm Sci (PSCI 47237), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
Medicinal Chemistry (PSCI 44040), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
PDAT 5: Cardiovascular (PHAR 40440), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
PDAT 5: Cardiovascular (PHAR 40437), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
Undergrad Res Exp Pharm Sci (PSCI 46125), 1/12/2026 – 5/1/2026
Colloquium Lecture Series (PSCI 425), 8/25/2025 – 12/5/2025
Fundamentals of Drug Action (PHAR 422), 8/25/2025 – 12/5/2025
Fundamentals of Drug Action (PHAR 422), 8/25/2025 – 12/5/2025
Selected Grants
Collaborative Research: Filamentous Peptide Nanomaterials through Molecular Design, National Science Foundation., 8/1/2024 - 7/31/2027, Obligated Amount: $300000; Anticipated Amount: $300000
Inducing Off-pathway Assembly of HIV Gag Polyprotein with Computationally Designed Peptides, National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)., 8/1/2023 - 7/31/2028, Obligated Amount: $1393700; Anticipated Amount: $2344594
Selected Publications
Littlefield, Katherine M, Bellingham, Michele, Jagani, Ravikumar, Patel, Hiraj, Lea, Richard, Sinclair, Kevin D, Evans, Neil P, Auchus, Richard, Villegas, Jose, Andra, Syam S, Veiga-Lopez, Almudena, Padmanabhan, Vasantha. (2026). Maternal exposure to biosolids reshapes chemical burden and steroidogenic pathways to promote adipogenic differentiation in a sheep model. Environment International, 214, 110396. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2026.110396.
Dean, TrevorT, Ziyad, Alyah, Klepacki, Dorota, Villegas, José A, Moore, Terry W. (2026). Molecular Determinants of Ribosome Binding for the Antimicrobial Peptide Pdi1. ACS Chemical Biology. doi:10.1021/acschembio.6c00052.
Livnah, Ella, Suss, Ohad, Rogel, Adi, Gilat, Atar, Abdan, Yuval, Villegas, José A, Gabizon, Ronen, Nadir, Almog, Shamir, Yoav, Steinman, Noam Y, Tivon, Barr, Albeck, Shira, Unger, Tamar, Golani, Ofra, Goliand, Inna, Elad, Nadav, Carvalho, Silvia, Shurrush, Khriesto, Barr, Haim, Margulies, David, Levy, Emmanuel D, London, Nir. (2026). A pharmacological modality to sequester homomeric proteins. Nature Chemical Biology, 1-11. doi:10.1038/s41589-026-02141-0.
Hennessy, Madeline R, Creed, Simone M, Gutridge, Anna M, Rusali, Lisa E, Luo, Dan, Sepehri, Bakhtyar, Rhoda, Elizabeth S, Villegas, José A, van Rijn, Richard M, Riley, Andrew P. (2024). Discovery of Potent Kappa Opioid Receptor Agonists Derived from Akuammicine. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 67, (23), 20842-20857. doi:10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00736.
Sepehri, Bakhtyar, Drew, Kevin, Villegas, José A. (2023). Come for the atmosphere, stay for the interactions: Deciphering small molecule partitioning into biomolecular condensates. Cell Chemical Biology, 30, (11), 1337-1339. doi:10.1016/j.chembiol.2023.10.015.
Vaid, Tasneem M, Demissie, Robel, Kwon, Youngjin, Tran, Thao, Moon, Hyung-Geun, Villegas, José A, Park, Gye Young, Johnson, Michael E, Lee, Hyun. (2023). Synergistic Inhibition Guided Fragment-Linking Strategy and Quantitative Structure–Property Relationship Modeling To Design Inhalable Therapeutics for Asthma Targeting CSF1R. ACS Omega, 8, (23), 20505-20512. doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c00803.
Ticiani, Elvis, Villegas, José A, Murga-Zamalloa, Carlos, Veiga-Lopez, Almudena. (2023). Binding sites in the epidermal growth factor receptor are responsible for bisphenol S effects on trophoblast cell invasion. Chemosphere, 318, 137960. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.137960.
Villegas, José A, Vaid, Tasneem M, Johnson, Michael E, Moore, Terry W. (2023). Mapping the energy landscape of PROTAC-mediated protein-protein interactions. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, 21, 1885-1892. doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2023.02.049.
Villegas, José A, Heidenreich, Meta, Levy, Emmanuel D. (2022). Molecular and environmental determinants of biomolecular condensate formation. Nature Chemical Biology, 18, (12), 1319-1329. doi:10.1038/s41589-022-01175-4.
Education
Degrees:
B.S., University of California, Santa Barbara, United States, 2003
M.A., Brooklyn College, United States, 2011
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, United States, 2017
Postgraduate Training:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, 2020
Bridge to the Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States, 2022