Drug Discovery and Development Faculty
CORE FACULTY
Chris Hulme, Ph.D. Phil, Oxon., associate professor
Discovery and development of novel anticancer therapeutics; high-throughput medicinal chemistry and the development of novel chemistries with iterative efficiency to expedite the drug discovery process; Microwave Assisted Organic Synthesis (MAOS), Flow chemistry, Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) and C-H bond activation methodologies utilizing hypervalent iodine reagents for the design of peptidomimetics.
Laurence H. Hurley, Ph.D, Purdue University, professor
Discovery and development of novel anticancer drugs
Elaine L. Jacobson, Ph.D, Kansas State University, professor
Optimizing molecular and cellular responses to UV radiation in skin
Myron K. Jacobson, Ph.D, Kansas State University, professor
Molecular mechanisms involved in maintenance of genomic integrity.
Daekyu Sun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Medicinal Chemistry-Pharmaceutical Sciences
Discovery and development of novel anti-angiogenic agents targeting transcriptional activation of VEGF and HIF-1alpha genes; Study of the mechanism of action of novel anticancer agents derived from natural products: Investigation of DNA-repair interference as a potential approach for cancer treatment.
Georg T. Wondrak, Ph.D., Technical University [TUB] Berlin, Germany
assistant professor
Reactivity-based drug discovery targeting the redox Achilles heel of skin cancer
Danzhou Yang, Ph.D, University of Illinois, associate professor
DNA and DNA interacting proteins as potential anticancer drug targets. Structure-based rational drug design.
ASSOCIATE FACULTY
Todd Camenisch, assistant professor, PhD, Pharmacology & Toxicology
Investigating the integration between extracellular matrix and growth factor receptor signaling during heart morphogenesis.
Qin Chen, associate professor, PhD, Pharmacology
Molecular mechanisms of oxidative injury and adaptation, stress signal transduction pathways, stress gene expression, senescence, apoptosis and cardiac hypertrophy.
Nathan Cherrington, assistant professor, PhD, Pharmacology & Toxicology
Studying molecular mechanisms of hepatotoxicity during cholestasis and employing a functional genomics approach based on flexible small-scale arrays to measure the expression of xenobiotic transporter and drug metabolism genes.
Bernard W. Futscher, associate professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Functional genomics; molecular biology of cancer; cancer pharmacology.
A. Jay Gandolfi, professor; PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Bioactivation of xenobiotics: in vitro toxicology systems; renal/hepatic toxicology; toxicity of halogenated hydrocarbons, and metals; mechanisms cell injury.
Walter Klimecki, assistant professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
My laboratory studies how the genes that people inherit from their ancestors set the stage for unique interactions with the environments that those people are exposed to throughout their life, to increase or decrease their susceptibility to disease. Those environmental exposures could be diverse, ranging from environmental toxicant chemicals to airborne bacterial contaminants to prescribed drugs. The combination of humans' diverse genetic backgrounds and equally diverse environmental exposures present both challenges and opportunities to understand individual variability in disease susceptibility.
Serrine Lau, professor, PhD
Genomic and proteomic approaches to investigate ROS and chemical-induced cell injury and carcinogenicity; molecular mechanisms of prostanoid mediated cytoprotection; mass spectrometric application of protein profiling and tissue imaging.
R. Clark Lantz, associate professor, PhD, Cell Biology and Anatomy
Pulmonary toxicology of air pollutants, especially metals; effects of air pollutants on neonatal lung growth and development
Terrence J. Monks, professor & head, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Molecular mechanisms of chemical-induced toxicities; stress response pathways and apoptotic/oncotic cell death; ROS-induced DNA damage and chromatin structure/function.
John W. Regan, professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Molecular pharmacology of G-protein coupled receptors: use of cloning, mutagenesis and expression to study receptor structure and the interaction of receptors with second messenger systems.
Catharine L. Smith, associate professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology Epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation, steroid receptor action in breast cancer, signal transduction and cell cycle control, mechanism of anti-cancer drug action.
Richard R. Vaillancourt, associate professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Molecular and biochemical characterization of serine/threonine protein kinases that function as part of sequential protein kinase pathways.
Donna Zhang, assistant professor, PhD, Pharmacology and Toxicology
The Nrf2/Keap1 signaling pathway that is activated by oxidative stress and chemopreventive compounds; Regulation of gene expression by the ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation pathway
Further information
For general questions regarding the graduate programs in the College of Pharmacy, contact Nancy Colbert, program coordinator, (520) 626-7265 or by fax (520)626-2466