He is also serving as the director of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (ICB&DD),[2] as well as the president of the Stony Brook Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors.

He received a 25th CSJ Award for Young Investigator for his research on "Highly selective syntheses by means of organosilicon compounds – transition metal complex systems" from the Chemical Society of Japan in 1976.

Furthermore, this process was successfully applied to the commercial synthesis of trifluridine (trifluorothymidine), an antiherpes antiviral drug, primarily used on the eye topically, such as "Viroptic" by Tokyo Yuki Gosei Kogyo in early 1990s.

[11] One of his second-generation taxoids, "ortataxel", developed from 14-hydroxy-10-deacetylbaccatin III, and licensed to Indena, SpA, Italy, has advanced to the Phase II human clinical trials.

Other highlights include his common pharmacophore proposal for microtubule-stabilizing anticancer agents, identification of the paclitaxel binding site and its bioactive conformation in the β-tubulin based on photoaffinity labeling and computational analyses, identification of unique characteristics of the next-generation taxoids in cancer cell biology and their mechanism of action, and efficacious tumor-targeted drug delivery of highly potent next-generation taxoids.

As of January 2024, he has published >500 papers and reviews in leading journals, >100 issued patents, edited nine books, and given >135 plenary and invited lectures in international meetings.