George Hanna | Chemistry | Best Researcher Award

Medical University of South Carolina | United States

Dr. George Steven Hanna is a Research Assistant Professor whose work lies at the intersection of environmental health, natural products chemistry, and biomedical sciences. He earned his B.S. in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston in 2014 and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a focus on Natural Products Chemistry from the Medical University of South Carolina. With a strong foundation in marine biology, Dr. Hanna has developed a career-long interest in understanding how environmental exposures—particularly those related to water quality, pollutants, and microbial dynamics—influence human health and disease. His multidisciplinary research approach integrates environmental studies, epidemiology, ecology, bioinformatics, toxicology, metabolomics, and pharmacology, using the chemistry of nature to inform biological mechanisms and drive therapeutic discovery. He has cultivated collaborations with key organizations including NOAA, NIST, South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources, and the College of Charleston, in addition to engaging community-based groups such as Charleston Waterkeepers. Through these partnerships, he has helped develop a five-year biobank of  citizen-science water samples, providing a valuable resource for evaluating bacterial pollutants, chemical contaminants, and sewage indicators in local waterways. Dr. Hanna’s research not only advances drug discovery and toxicological studies but also directly informs public health policy and water treatment strategies. Committed to team science, community engagement, and addressing health disparities, he seeks to bridge environmental and biomedical sciences to improve human health outcomes while fostering sustainable solutions that benefit both communities and ecosystems.

profile: Google Scholar 

Featured Publications

• Hanna, G. S., Findlay, V. J., Turner, D. P., & Hamann, M. T. (2024). Quantitative NMR analysis of marine macroalgae for AGE inhibition by methylglyoxal scavenging. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 72(39), 21905–21911.

• Hanna, G. S., Benjamin, M. M., Choo, Y. M., De, R., Schinazi, R. F., Nielson, S. E., Hevel, J. M., & Hamann, M. T. (2024). Informatics and computational approaches for the discovery and optimization of natural product-inspired inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 2′-O-methyltransferase. Journal of Natural Products, 87(2), 217–227.

• Valente, I. V. B., Garcia, D., Abbott, A., Spruill, L., Siegel, J., Forcucci, J., Hanna, G., Mukherjee, R., Hamann, M., Hilliard, E., Lockett, M., Cole, D. J., & Klauber-DeMore, N. (2024). The anti-proliferative effects of a frankincense extract in a window of opportunity phase Ia clinical trial for patients with breast cancer. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 204(3), 521–530.

• Krisanits, B. A., Woods, P., Nogueira, L. M., Woolfork, D. D., Lloyd, C. E., Baldwin, A., Frye, C. C., Peterson, K. D., Cosh, S. D., Guo, Q. J., Spruill, L. S., Lilly, M. B., Helke, K., Li, H., Hanna, G. S., Hamann, M. T., Thomas, C., Ahmed, M., Gooz, M. B., Findlay, V. J., & Turner, D. P. (2022). Non-enzymatic glycoxidation linked with nutrition enhances the tumorigenic capacity of prostate cancer epithelia through AGE mediated activation of RAGE in cancer associated fibroblasts. Translational Oncology, 17, 101350.

• Mayasari, D., Murti, Y. B., Pratiwi, S. U. T., Sudarsono, S., Hanna, G., & Hamann, M. T. (2022). TLC-based fingerprinting analysis of the geographical variation of Melastoma malabathricum in inland and archipelago regions: A rapid and easy-to-use tool for field metabolomics studies. Journal of Natural Products, 85(1), 292–300.