John Kopchick
| John J Kopchick | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
November 2, 1950 Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania |
| Residence | Athens, Ohio |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Biologist |
| Institutions | Ohio University |
| Alma mater |
Indiana University of Pennsylvania University of Texas, MD Anderson |
| Known for | Growth Hormone Research |
| Notable awards | British Society for Endocrinology’s Transatlantic Medal (2011) |
| John Kopchick | |
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John Kopchick moderating a session at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting, Boston 2011
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John Kopchick is a molecular biologist and co-inventor of the drug Somavert (Pegvisomant), which has improved the lives of acromegalic individuals around the world. He is currently the Goll-Ohio Eminent Scholar and Professor of Molecular Biology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Kopchick's groundbreaking work in the field of growth hormone has helped shape the study of endocrinology.
John Joseph Kopchick was born in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on November 2, 1950 to Peter Kopchick and Kathryn Gabster Kopchick. He spent the first four years of his life in a small coal mining town: Ernest, Pennsylvania. He then moved to Indiana, Pennsylvania with his parents and youngest brother, Bill, where he attended Indiana High School. There, he varsity lettered in baseball, was in the national honor society, and played trumpet in the school band and orchestra. John later attended The Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he met his wife, Charlene Kopchick. They were married on June 26, 1976.
Dr. Kopchick received his B.S. in biology in 1972 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). While attending IUP, he was a founding brother of a social fraternity Chi Alpha Sigma, which is now a chapter of Delta Tau Delta. In 1975, he received his M.S. in biology and chemistry from IUP. The title of his M.S. thesis was ‘Catabolism of alpha-amino adipate by Pseudomonas putida p2’. He went on to attend the University of Texas, MD Anderson Hospital, Houston, Texas and received his Ph.D. in 1980. His dissertation described the biosynthesis of Rauscher murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase. From 1980 to 1982, he continued his research training as a postdoctoral fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, New Jersey. He then accepted a position at the prestigious Merck Institute of Therapeutic Research where he conducted and facilitated research from 1982 to 1986, first as a senior research biochemist and later as a research fellow, and finally as a group leader of Molecular Biology at the Department of Animal Drug Discovery. During that time, he developed a system built around cloning and expression of growth hormone (GH) genes.
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