Our current projects are in the areas of infectious disease, cancer, and cardiovascular / pulmonary health. We are guided by a broad curiosity about how enzymes work and how we can manipulate their functions. In most projects, we study the chemistry behind how these proteins accelerate chemical reactions that are important for biological processes. We use this information to develop small molecules to regulate the enzyme’s function, to design variant enzymes with altered functions or properties, or to design chemical probes to study the activity of enzymes within living cells. We choose to study enzymes that are suitable targets for new drugs, so our work also serves as an early step in the development of novel therapeutics.  See our lab website (link above) for detials.

Please see PubMed For a listing of my publications. [Link]

Representitive publications:

Covalent Inhibition of New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) by Cefaclor (2014) ChemBioChem 15, 2541.

n-Alkylboronic Acid Inhibitors Reveal Determinants of Ligand Specificity in the Quorum-Quenching and Siderophore Biosynthetic Enzyme PvdQ (2014) Biochemistry 53, 6679.

Developing an Irreversible Inhibitor of Human DDAH-1, an Enzyme Upregulated in Melanoma (2014) ChemMedChem 9, 792.