Currently, MCNP comprises twelve primary faculty members and five secondary faculty involved in research and teaching. In addition, six research professors, three visiting scientists, fifteen postdoctoral fellows, and forty graduate students form the foundation of a vibrant and interactive research environment in MCNP. Our scientific interests are diverse and span most key areas in contemporary medicinal chemistry. Research approaches ranging from synthesis, spectroscopy, biochemistry, molecular biology and computational chemistry are coupled to identify new therapeutic agents, targets, and the pathways by which drugs express their function.

Specifically, MCNP has research strengths in the synthesis and structure-activity characterization of pharmaceutically relevant small molecules and natural products; bioorganic and chemical biology studies of the properties of designed small-molecule ligands and their cognate drug targets, including proteins, nucleic acids, and glycoconjugates; combinatorial biochemistry and proteomics for the identification of novel signaling pathways and drug targets; structural biology and biomolecular dynamics of drug-protein interactions; chemo- and bioinformatics; and molecular modeling. MCNP is well equipped to support these areas of research.

Importantly, our scientific interests are integrated with the University of North Carolina's extensive presence in the biomedical sciences. These interests also benefit from many pharmaceutical research programs in nearby Research Triangle Park. In keeping with the spirit of drug discovery that exists in North Carolina's Research Triangle, the School of Pharmacy is a campus-wide leader in new scientific inventions. Indeed, compounds developed in the laboratories of Professors KH Lee and Hal Kohn recently moved into advanced phases of clinical trials for AIDS and neuropathic pain, respectively.

See the division faculty page for more
information on our faculty and their research

• Current Research
  
• Recent Grants
  
• Recent Publications
• Recent Presentations
• Centers and Programs
• Resources
  
  

• Intra- and Intermolecular Dynamics of Dihydrofolate Reductase
  Andrew Lee and Scott Singleton: National Institutes of Health (R01-GM083059) 1/08 – 12/11 $720,000  (total direct costs).
  
• Small Molecule Sensors and Inhibitors of Phosphatase of Regenerative Liver 3 (PRL-3)
  Qisheng Zhang: R.J. Reynolds Fund Award 1/08 - 12/08 $7,500 (total direct costs).
  
• Modified Triterpenes as Potent HIV Fusion Inhibitors
  K. H. Lee: National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01 AI077417) 12/07 – 11/12 $1,860,186 (total direct costs).
  
• Computational Receptoromics: A Systematic Approach to Predicting the Complex Receptor Binding Profiles of Drug Molecules
  Simon Wang: University Research Council Research Grant 12/07 - 11/09 $4,500 (total direct costs)
  
• Novel Methods to Identify Targets of the Neurological Agent (R)-Lacosamide
  Harold Kohn and Rihe Liu: National Institutes of Health (R01 NS054112) 7/06 - 6/10 $900,000 (total direct costs).
  
• Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel Neurological Agents
  Harold Kohn: UCB Pharma S.A, 9/07 - 9/09 $413,200 (total direct costs).
  
• Protein Structure/Function Specific Packing Motifs
  Alex Tropsha: National Institutes of Health (GM068665) 8/1/06-7/30/10 $760,000 (total direct costs).
  

• Anti-AIDS Agents 73: Structure-activity Relationship Study and Asymmetric Synthesis of 3-O-Monomethylsuccinyl-betulinic Acid Derivatives
  Qian, K., Nakagawa-Goto, K., Yu, D., Morris-Natschke, S.L., Nitz, T.J., Kilgore, N., Allaway, G.P., and Lee, K.H., Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters 17: 6553-6557 (2007).
  
• Reversine Induces Cellular Reprogramming of Lineage-Committed Mammalian Cells
  Chen, S., Takanashi, S., Zhang, Q., Xiong, W., Peters, E.C., Ding, S., and Schultz, P.G., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104: 10482–10487 (2007).
  
• Systems chemical biology
  Oprea TI, Tropsha A, Faulon JL, Rintoul MD. Nat. Chem. Biol. 3, 447-50 (2007).
  
• Inhibition of Escherichia coli RecA by rationally redesigned N-terminal helix.
  Cline DJ, Holt SL, Singleton SF, Org Biomol Chem 5, 1525-8 (2007).
  
• Fluorine-substituted Dihydrobicyclomycins: Synthesis, Biochemical and Biological Properties
  Boon Sang Park, William R. Widger, and Harold Kohn, Bioorg. Med. Chem. 14, 41-61 (2006).
  

• Rec-ing the DNA Repair Shop: An Approach to Confront Antibiotic Resistance
  Scott Singleton: Indiana University Program in Biochemistry, April 11, 2008.
• Modeling Toxicity from High Throughput Screening Data on Environmental Chemicals
  Alex Tropsha: Society of Toxicology, Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, Mar. 2008.
  
• Recent Advances in QSAR Modeling
  Alex Tropsha: Univ. Lou Pasteur, Strasbourg, France, Feb. 2008.
  
• Plenary Lecture on "Discovery and Development of Antitumor and Anti-HIV Clinical Trials Candidates"
  Lee, K. H.: Calvert Research Institute (Cary, NC), September 1, 2007.
• Invited Paper on "Application of HPLC Connected with Hybrid Ion Trap and Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry to Separate and Characterize Bioactive Natural Products – Illustration of Flavonolignans Isolated from Silybum marianum"
  Lee, K. H.: NIH-MLSCN Annual Steering Committee Meeting (Washington, DC), July 19, 2007.