Our research interests lie in the area of medicinal chemistry, specifically in the discovery of new small molecule cancer therapeutics. Often, adverse side effects are experienced by chemotherapy patients due to the indiscriminant cytotoxic activities of cancer drugs. Researchers have made excellent progress in creating targeted drugs for cancer chemotherapy, but there remains a great opportunity to develop new drugs that offer decreased side-effects while potently treating this diverse disease. Our research in this area involves using some established organic synthetic methods, as well as developing new organic reactions, for creating small libraries of new potential chemotherapeutic drugs. The molecules will not only be characterized for typical evidence of identity and purity, but also for specific biological activities. In doing so, we hope to gain a better understanding of the complex factors involved in targeting tumors over normal healthy tissue. Interdisciplinary research of this nature creates the opportunity for trainees to learn skills from the field of synthetic organic chemistry as well as biochemistry.
