Interdisciplinary Research into Disease Biology for Drug Development

Our interdisciplinary chemistry and biology research is focused on the understanding of how bioactive small molecule affect biological systems.  We use organic synthesis to access structurally-complex, biologically-active compounds, which are often natural product compounds. We use our ability to make and modify molecular structures to identify cellular targets and cellular mechanism of action for novel compounds, which is a potential route to the identification of new druggable targets for therapeutic development. We also use medicinal chemistry approaches to produce new compound libraries for drug development programs 

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Our current research projects include studying the cellular function, molecular pharmacology, and drug development of the oxysterol-binding proteins (OSBP/ORPs) for the potential development of broad-spectrum antiviral and precision anticancer therapeutics.