Chair of the University of Wisconsin biochemistry department, Hector DeLuca, announced Friday he will be stepping down from his administrative position.

DeLuca, who has served as the chair for the past 35 years, has had more than 100 patents. According to UW Provost Peter Spear, DeLuca’s patents have brought in tens of millions of dollars in royalty fees for the UW.

“He has helped build one of the best biochemistry departments in the country,” Spear said.

DeLuca, who is currently going through chemotherapy treatments for lymphoma, will continue as a faculty member in the biochemistry department and will also remain active in research projects after he resigns in July, Spear said.

“It will be a loss for him to step down from that leadership,” Spear said. “The good news is he’ll be continue as a faculty member.”

DeLuca specializes in the research of metabolism and mechanism of action of vitamins A and D, according to his website. DeLuca’s research originally began as describing which forms of vitamin A and D can be used to fight deficiency.

More recently, DeLuca’s research has centered on vitamin D compounds and their use in curing various diseases.

According to Spear, DeLuca developed a drug named 2MD in October 2002, which gives hope to osteoporosis sufferers. The drug, when tested on laboratory animals, was able to build bone mass. DeLuca formed Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals, a company to continue research on the drug and eventually commercialize it, Spear said. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has since bought rights to the drug.

“There really wasn’t any connection in the old days between discovery and commercial applications for industry,” DeLuca said in a UW release, adding he did not believe academia wanted to “get in bed with business.”

According to DeLuca’s UW website, there are substantial efforts being made to collaborate with the medical world in order to apply newly produced analogs of the vitamin D compounds and of vitamin A compounds to treat various diseases. Specifically, recent efforts have been made to prevent and bring an end to “autoimmune diseases [such] as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and as an anti-transplant-rejection drug.”

Spear said DeLuca is a fixture in the CALS program and has taught many graduate students.

“He’s been an important person in the college and in [the biochemistry] department for decades,” Spear said.