Cindy Kan is a senior associate in the Intellectual Property Department. She focuses her practice on patents in the fields of biotechnology, materials and life sciences. She has experience in patent portfolio management and development, competitive landscape analyses and patentability.

Prior to joining WilmerHale, Dr. Kan was a visiting research investigator at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York. While there, she explored the synthesis of tripeptide natural products with anticancer activity. From 2010 to 2014, Dr. Kan was an assistant professor of chemistry at Amherst College, where she taught organic chemistry courses and conducted research in natural products synthesis and cycloaddition reactions.

Previously, Dr. Kan was a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In that role, she designed and executed a de novo chemical synthesis of the Ala¹-Gly²⁸ glycopeptide domain of erythropoietin, a glycoprotein hormone.

Dr. Kan is a member of the American Chemical Society.

Recent Publications

• Wender, P. A.; Buschmann, N.; Cardin, N. B.; Jones, L. R.; Kan, C.; Kee, J.-M.; Kowalski, J. A.; Longcore, K. E., "Gateway Synthesis of Daphnane Congeners and Their Protein Kinase C Affinities and Cell-growth Activities," Nature Chemistry 2011, 3, 615-619
• Kan, C.; Danishefsky, S. J. "Recent departures in the synthesis of peptides and glycopeptides," Tetrahedron, 2009, 65, 9047-9065
• Kan, C.; Trzupek, J. D.; Wu, B.; Wan, Q.; Chen, G.; Tan, Z.; Yuan, Y.; Danishefsky, S. J. "Toward Homogeneous Erythropoietin: Chemical Synthesis of the Ala1-Gly28 Glycopeptide Domain," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 5438-5443
• Yuan, Y.; Chen, J.; Wan, Q.; Tan, Z.; Chen, G.; Kan, C.; Danishefsky, S. J. "Toward Homogeneous Erythropoietin: Fine Tuning of the C-Terminal Acyl Donor in the Chemical Synthesis of the Cys29-Gly77 Glycopeptide Domain," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 5432-5437