No one in the Wisconsin neighborhood where he grew up would have called Laith Q. Al-Mawsawi driven. "The only thing I wanted to do was ski – and all we had was a little ice hill that took about seven seconds to get down. Good grades only meant I could get on that hill."

While he eventually got to hit some bigger slopes – he did his undergraduate years at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City – today those who know the fifth year graduate student at the USC School of Pharmacy see him as a dedicated and passionate researcher.

Working in the drug design laboratory of associate professor Nouri Neamati, Al-Mawsawi has amassed an impressive 15 journal articles, including the cover of the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a review in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. "The average for most graduate students, "notes his professor Nouri Neamati, "is two."

While working in a protein laboratory in Salt Lake City, Al-Mawsawi became interested in researching the relationship between protein structure and function. At USC he found drug design and discovery --searching for the chemical compounds that inhibit protein function -- "Wasn’t that different. It really comes down to chemical contacts. Everyone else was doing cell biology, but this was more to my liking."

He also discovered a passion for scientific writing. "I like trying to explain difficult biological concepts so that everyone gets the take-home message."

In the future, Al-Mawsawi wants to expand his skills so "I understand all aspects of drug design. Getting a drug from bench to bedside is more than just research, and I’m interested in the whole picture." Oh, and hitting the slopes too.