Biography
My goal is to continue to develop a pre-eminent infectious disease chemical biology and medicinal chemistry program. My research is centered around drug discovery for rare and neglected diseases that are often overlooked by the for-profit pharmaceutical industry. The lack of an effective treatment, or access to one, means that most patients with these diseases ultimately suffer, or die from them. We collaborate with industry, public-private partnerships, government, and academic groups to deliver better treatments to patients faster. We do this using a holistic approach where our priority is to understand what the therapeutic needs are for each disease. We establish a profile of what an effective therapeutic will look like (target candidate profile; where we map absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination, and physicochemical properties to our targeted compounds) which directs our medicinal chemistry optimization. Our approach is multi-faceted, considering not just potency, but the “drug-like” properties of candidate compounds. This profile provides us with a road map to follow for our drug discovery programs, and the benchmarks to track our progress. My expertise in synthetic organic, and medicinal chemistry allows us to generate novel chemical matter, and drive collaborations with biologists in industry and academia.
My extensive experience as a small molecule medicinal chemist applying singleton and parallel synthetic medicinal chemistry techniques uniquely positions me to answer questions regarding the activity and properties of drug-like chemical matter. Our workflow removes compounds with known structural liabilities (enabled by my expertise with Nuisance and pan-assay interference compounds) and allows us to interrogate targeted compounds using a unique in-house database containing predicted drug-like properties.
For a link to my publications please click here.
Funded Projects
R01 AI152092
Dates: 04/01/20 – 03/31/25
Title: Repurposing kinase inhibitor chemotypes as antimalarials
R01 AI160379
Dates: 04/01/21 – 03/31/26
Title: Validation of Trypanosoma cruzi dihydroorotate dehydrogenase as a drug target for Chagas disease
R33 AI141227
Dates: 02/22/19 – 01/31/24
Title: Lead optimization of hits identified from virtual and experimental screens of multiple industrial libraries
2R01 AI114685
Dates: 12/04/14 – 03/31/26
Title: Repurposing human kinase inhibitor chemotypes for Neglected Tropical Diseases
R01 AI148235
Dates: 05/15/20 – 04/30/24
Title: Inhibiting sequential biosynthetic steps of a fungal-specific organelle
R01 AI124046
Dates: 04/01/21 – 03/21/26
Title: Optimization and Modes of Action of NEU-4438, a New Anti-trypanosome Lead Drug
Honors
2023 Henry Hill Award for Outstanding Service to the Northeast Section of the American Chemical Society
2023 College of Science CONNECTS award for outstanding contributions to the College
2023 Northeastern University, College of Science, Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentorship
2018 Periodic Table of Younger Chemists Awardee – Nickel