Dr. Yohannes pursued chemistry at Sterling College in Kansas, and medicinal chemistry in graduate school at the University of Kansas with Professor Dale L. Boger. He followed Professor Boger to Purdue, where he received his PhD for the total synthesis of anticancer natural products, after which he took a position at Yale with Professor Samuel Danishefsky as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow. He then spent eight years with Pfizer in the department of Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Yohannes came to Targacept from the Boston area, where he was director of chemistry at ArQule. Previous to ArQule, Daniel was director of medicinal chemistry at Infinity Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Yohannes is responsible for the Molecular Design, Medicinal Chemistry, and Compound Management groups at Targacept.

Targacept is a biopharmaceutical firm that discovers and develops NNR Therapeutics™, a new class of drugs for the treatment of central nervous system diseases and disorders.