Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy

Bolton, Judy L.: Professor and Head, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1988) University of Toronto

Research interests: Chemical toxicology. The toxic effects elicited by dietary constituents often involves oxidative metabolism to electrophilic intermediates. We utilize chemical and biological approaches to study the cytotoxic/genotoxic mechanism including synthesis, spectroscopy, chromatography and enzymology. Metabolites and metabolic intermediates are identified, and their effects on various biochemical parameters studied.
judy.bolton

Burdette, Joanna E.: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy. Ph.D. (2003) University of Illinois at Chicago

Research interests: The lab focuses on women’s health, specifically breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and aging. One project focuses on estrogen receptor repression of activin signaling in breast cancer. Another area explores ovulation in the initiation and progression of ovarian cancers. The lab is generating a novel three-dimensional model of ovarian cancer and identifying molecules for chemoprevention. Finally, we are characterizing new magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents aimed at tracking hormone receptor positive tumors in vivo.
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Che, Chun-Tao: Norman R. Farnsworth Professor of Pharmacognosy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy. Ph.D. (1982) University of Illinois at Chicago

Research interests: Interested in natural drugs and Chinese medicine, including: 1. Natural products chemistry: isolation, characterization, and structural elucidation of secondary metabolites from medicinal plants and other natural sources. 2. Biologically active natural substances. 3. Chemical/biological standardization and quality assessment of herbal drugs and herb-based preparations. 4. Development of analytical techniques for herbal drug analysis. 5. Development of evidence-based Chinese medicine and other natural products
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Federle, Michael J.: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (2002) Emory University, Atlanta

Research interests:Research focuses on discovering and understanding how bacteria communicate among themselves as a means for organizing group behaviors, especially behaviors facilitating the initiation and progression of disease in humans.  Cell-to-cell communication in bacteria, termed Quorum Sensing, relies on a language of small, secreted signaling molecules called autoinducers.  Bacteria detect and respond to autoinducers through various types of receptor proteins sitting atop gene regulatory networks.  it is my goal to identify and describe the production and structure of new autoinducers and their cognate signal-transduction networks that contribute to the pathogenic state of the microorganism.  Our lab will use classic bacterial genetic and molecular biology techniques combined with conventional genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic analyses to identify components and targets of these signaling systems.  Structural analysis of autoinducers and receptors, as well as screening for inhibitory compounds, will also be a focus of our work.  I am concentrating my efforts on Gram-positive pathogens, as these organisms pose the most current threat in developing resistance to multiple antibiotic treatments.  It is my hope that our research will lead to the development of new therapies that exploit and confuse communication systems bacteria use to organize attacks on the body.
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Franzblau, Scott, G.: Professor and Director of the Institute for Tuberculosis Research, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1982) University of Arizona

Research interests: New drug discovery from natural and synthetic sources for tuberculosis; high throughput screening assay development; new drug target identification using proteomic and metabolomic analyses of dormant M. tuberculosis, low-tech clinical drug susceptibility assay development.
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Hanakahi, Les: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1996) Yale University

Research interests: The major pathway for DNA Double-Strand Break repair in human cells is Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ). The primary focus of my research is to understand, in molecular detail, how DNA ends that are exposed by a DSB are recognized, protected from degradation and efficiently re-joined in human cells. Much of the research being done in my lab centers on the participation of a small molecule, inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6), in the repair of DSBs by mammalian NHEJ. We have found that IP6 is bound by an NHEJ factor and stimulates NHEJ in vitro. This finding opened new possibilities for investigating the molecular mechanism of NHEJ and exciting new avenues for pharmaceutical control of NHEJ in human cells.
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Johnson, Michael E.: Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, and Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Ph.D. (1973) Northwestern University

Research interests: Structural biology of proteins and RNA; structure-based design of therapeutic agents using modern techniques of computer-aided drug design, combinatorial expansion, in silico screening of chemical libraries and related technologies. Modern biotechnology provides an enormous range of tools for the development of new therapeutic agents to treat infectious diseases and other human ailments.
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Kozikowski, Alan P.: Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1974) University of California, Berkeley

Research interests: Using the latest methods of organic synthesis combined with information gleaned from the methods of molecular modeling (both small molecule and protein modeling) to design and synthesize molecules that can be used to gain a better understanding of the function of specific molecular targets. These chemical tools in turn aid in the design of valuable diagnostics as well as therapies for treating human diseases including neurodegenerative conditions and cancer.
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Mankin, Alexander S.: Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy and the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Ph.D. (1981) Moscow State University

Research Interests: Mechanisms of protein synthesis; structure, function and evolution of ribosome and ribosomal RNA; mechanisms of action of ribosome-targeted antibiotics.
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Murphy, Brian T.: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (2007) Virginia Tech

Research interests: The surfaces of marine organisms provide a source of nutrients for microbes within our oceans. Consequently a competition for space results between surface-colonizing (epibiotic) microorganisms. We propose that select secondary metabolites from epibiotic bacteria, which serve as chemical defenses or means of inter- and intra-species microbial communication, can be utilized to probe and combat the pathogenic mechanisms of human microbial pathogens. In the Murphy lab, these epibiotic bacteria are collected from unique source organisms, cultivated in liquid culture, crudely separated, and screened against a variety of human pathogens with the ultimate intent of discovering novel antibiotic structural classes. Of particular interest is the target Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a pathogen responsible for 1.5 ­ 2.3 million deaths in 2008 [WHO Global Tuberculosis Control report]. We work in close collaboration with the Institute for Tuberculosis Research at UIC (http://www.tuberculosisdrugresearch.org/), who has both in vitro and in vivo screening capacity.
btmurphy

Orjala, Jimmy: Associate Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1993) Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland.

Research interests: Our research is focused on three areas: 1. Discovery of pharmacological active natural products from cultured cyanobacteria. 2. Chemical communication between microorganisms and its role in the phenomenon of ‘uncultivable’ microorganisms. 3. Novel antineoplastic agents from higher plants. Our research tools are modern chromatographic methods coupled with sensitive analytical techniques, such as microcoil NMR techniques, and molecular target assays.
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Pauli, Guido F.: Associate Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1993) Heinrich Heine–University Düsseldorf; Pharm.D., 1988, Philipps University Marburg.

Research interests: Within the realm of modern pharmacognosy, investigation of traditional as well as novel natural products by means of chemical, biological, pharmacological and metabolome analysis. Research tools are computer-aided structure elucidation, multidimensional and quantitative NMR, modern chromatographic methods including countercurrent chromatography, in tandem with in vitro and in vivo biology and pharmacology as well as microbiological methods. Relying on this tool chest, research focuses are in phytopharmacy and phytochemistry, herbal dietary supplements, reference materials, anti-TB drugs and mycobacterial secondary metabolites.
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Petukhov, Pavel A.: Associate Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1998) Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russia

Research Interests: Development of new methods and biologically orthogonal chemical tools for chemical biology and translation of this knowledge to discovery of novel therapeutically relevant compounds; structure-, ligand-, and fragment-based drug design using a mix of medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug design, and bioinformatics. The current focus of the laboratory is on the development of methods for characterization of multiple binding modes of the ligands in the binding sites of histone deacetylases (HDAC) using photoactivatable chemical probes and discovery of novel inhibitors of HDACs, calpain, beta-secretases 1 and 2, pantothenate synthetase, and malate synthase with potential application in cancer, neurological and bacterial diseases.
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Soejarto, D. Doel: Professor and Director of the Pharmacognosy Field Station, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, and the Department of Biology, Ph.D. (1969) Harvard University

Research interests: Taxonomy and conservation of plants, with special focus in Southeast Asia, particularly, Vietnam and Laos, and study of plants used in indigenous therapy, as well as tropical rainforest explorations of new and potential medicinal plants (bioprospecting), as part of collaborative research projects at UIC. I also study the taxonomy of the family Actinidiaceae. Since 1998, I have been directing an international collaborative program to study the biodiversity of Vietnam and Laos, as part of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program (http://www.fic.nih.gov/programs/icbg.html and http://www.uic.edu/pharmacy/research/icbg/ICBG.htm) of the Fogarty International Center, NIH. Our ICBG program activities include floristics and conservation at Cuc Phuong National Park; studies of medicinal plants of Laos; biological evaluation of plants of Vietnam and Laos using anti-HIV, anticancer, anti-TB and anti-malarial bioassays toward the discovery of biologically active molecules as potential candidates for pharmaceutical development; and the promotion of economic development among communities in Vietnam and Laos, where our ICBG work is being undertaken. Aside from UIC as base institution, our ICBG consortium members include Purdue University, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi (Institute of Biotechnology, Institute of Chemistry, and Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources), Cuc Phuong National Park (Vietnam), Traditional Medicine Research Center in Vientiane (Laos), and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (industrial partner).
DDS

Swanson, Steven M.: Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy; Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Pharmacy; PhD (1990) University of Illinois at Chicago.

Research interests: The major theme of research by my laboratory is to develop novel therapies for the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. We currently have two federally funded research projects ongoing. “Biological Correlation and Analysis” funded by the NIH. In this core, we evaluate activity of extracts and pure compounds against specific molecular targets. We also conduct follow-up assays on active principles using cell based and animal model systems. Finally, we conduct studies to evaluate the mechanism of action of leads. We currently have two very promising compounds that have been selected by NIH to undergo further preclinical development in the RAID program. Our second federally funded project is supported by the Department of Defense and is entitled “Mechanism of Prostate Cancer Prevention by downregulation of the GH/IGF Axis." Our goal in this project is to further test the hypothesis that the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor (GH/IGF-1) axis is a good target to develop novel anti-cancer therapeutics against. We think that targeting GH may be safer and more efficacious than targeting IGF-1 since GH regulates IGF-1 and can downregulate IGF-1 substantially, but not completely. However, other therapeutics that downregulate IGF-1 may do so to a degree that could produce harmful side effects.
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Thatcher, Gregory R.: Professor and Hans W. Vahlteich Chair in Medicinal Chemistry; Assistant Head, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1986) University of Toronto

Research interests: Employing the tools of mechanistic organic chemistry and the ability to synthesize novel compounds, biomimetics are being developed as probes of biological systems. These mimetics have the capacity to further understanding of biological processes, chemical toxicology and in some cases to provide new drug candidates. This program is revealing new therapeutics for neurological disorders and for cancer.
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Thomas, Douglas D.: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (2000) Louisiana State University

Research interests: The goal of my research is to explore and understand basic fundamental concepts of oxidative stress and redox chemical biology as they relate to the potential treatment and the pathogenesis of human diseases. Free radicals have numerous functions, some of which include immune defenses, blood pressure regulation, and neuronal transmission. One of the interesting and often puzzling properties of free radicals in disease is that they can produce many, often opposing, biological effects under seemingly similar circumstances. This has remained a perplexing yet important problem in biology and medicine. My interests lie in deciphering the biochemical parameters which govern the differential cellular responses to nitrosative and oxidative stress, with the ultimate goal being therapeutic application.
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van Breemen, Richard B.: Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Director of the UIC/NIH Center for Dietary Supplements Research, and Assistant to the Director of the Research Resources Center, Ph.D. (1985) The Johns Hopkins University

Research interests: Biomedical applications of tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS) and HPLC-MS-MS including the discovery and development of botanical natural products for cancer chemoprevention and women's health. We are using mass spectrometry in all aspects of drug discovery and development from the screening of plant extracts for the discovery of new therapeutic agents to in vitro models of drug metabolism and bioavailability studies in clinical trials.
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Woodbury, Charles P.: Associate Professor and Assistant Head, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Ph.D. (1975) University of Wisconsin.

Research interests: Biophysical chemistry of proteins and nucleic acids; electrolyte and polyelectrolyte solutions; macromolecular binding theory; stochastic theory of single molecule reaction kinetics; statistical theory of chromatography. Studies in these fundamental areas will help in the future development of therapeutics and diagnostics.
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