Rate My Professor Paul Savage

Paul B. Savage is the Reed M. Izatt Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he has served on the faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since 1995. He earned a B.S. in chemistry from BYU in 1988, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin with Samuel H. Gellman in 1993, and completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship with Leo A. Paquette at The Ohio State University from 1993 to 1995. Rising through the ranks at BYU, Savage now holds the prestigious Reed M. Izatt Professorship.

His research in organic chemistry centers on mimicking innate immune defenses through the synthesis of cationic steroid antimicrobials (ceragenins), non-peptide analogs of host defense peptides that disrupt bacterial membranes and prevent biofilm formation on medical devices. Additional efforts explore glycolipid antigens that activate natural killer T cells for enhanced immune responses in carbohydrate vaccines against bacterial pathogens. This work has produced over 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 50 U.S. patents. Key publications include "The biology of NKT cells" in Annual Review of Immunology (2007), "Exogenous and endogenous glycolipid antigens activate NKT cells during microbial infections" in Nature (2005), and "Lysosomal glycosphingolipid recognition by NKT cells" in Science (2004). Funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and corporate sponsors, his contributions have earned the Reed M. Izatt and James J. Christensen Faculty Excellence in Research Award (2010) and the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award (2021). Savage delivered BYU's Forum address in 2022 titled "It is a dangerous business, going into the laboratory," emphasizing the adventures of academic research.