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RESEARCH
Drug Design Consortium
Nature has provided many compounds to treat illness, including penicillin,
insulin and taxol. However, the highly potent and specific treatments
provided by modern drug therapy require new drug molecules not known to
be provided by nature. Prozac, AZT and morphine are examples of drugs
designed and synthesized in the lab that revolutionized medical treatment.
Drug design activities at CD4 focus on developing novel therapies for
AIDS, malaria, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, hypertension
and several viral and bacterial infections.
AIDS victims in developed nations have good chances of survival today
because of the success of rational drug design that yielded the protease
inhibitors used in the famous triple cocktail. CD4 faculty have been actively
studying protease inhibitors for many years and contributed to their use
to treat AIDS. However, this class of compounds can provide novel drugs
for a broad variety of diseases by selectively preventing destruction
of certain proteins. We are developing new protease inhibitors as novel
drugs against cancer, stroke, emphysema and other diseases.
CD4 also has significant activities in the design and synthesis of anti-viral
and anti-parasitic drugs. We are creating new molecules belonging to a
class of compounds called nucleosides and directing them against malaria
and hepatitis B. These nucleosides can be selectively taken into infected
cells and kill the infecting organism without harming the patient's cells.
Another approach being studied at CD4 involves developing novel therapies
that control genes, especially those involved in cancer. Some gene therapy
compounds we have designed bind to specific locations on DNA molecules
found only in cancer cells and thereby may selectively kill tumors. Other
molecules have been designed as switches that can turn on and off production
of therapeutic proteins by cells.
Faculty - Drug Design
Donald
Doyle, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Nicholas
Hud, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Hanjoong Jo, Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Julia
Kubanek, Assistant Professor of Biology and Chemistry and Biochemistry
Alfred
Merrill, Smithgall Chair and Professor of Biology
Shuming
Nie, Wallace Coulter Chair and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Yomi Oyelere, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
James
Powers, Regents' Professor of Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry
