Former Group Members

Graduate Students

• Joy M. Nielsen, MS Medicinal Chemistry, 1996, Thesis Title: ”Development of an Antiphosphorylcholine Single Chain Antibody”

• Shu-ling Chang, MS Microbial Engineering, 1997, Thesis Title: “The Generation of Single Chain Catalytic Antibodies for Carbamate Hydrolysis”

• Edward J. McIntee, Ph.D. Medicinal Chemistry, 1997, Thesis Title: “Synthesis, Biological Activity and Mechanistic Studies of Aromatic Amino Acid Phosphoramidates of Antiviral and Antitumor Nucleosides”

• Kristina R. K. Sticha, Ph.D. (Co-advisor with Dr. P. E. Hanna) Pharmacology, 1998, Thesis Title: “N-Acetyltransferases: Studies of Recombinant Enzymes and Bioactivation of Carcinogenic Arylamine Metabolites”

• Shu-ling Chang, Ph.D., Microbiology, Immunology and Medical Pathobiology, 1999, Thesis Title: “Mechanistic Studies of Anti-HIV-1 Nucleoside Phosphoramidates”

• Heng Song, Ph.D., (Co-advisor with Dr. C. L. Zimmerman) Pharmaceutics, 2000, Thesis Title: “Characterization of the Pharmacokinetics of Amino Acid Phosphoramidates of AZT in Rats”

• Vidhya I. Iyer, Ph.D. Medicinal Chemistry, 1998, Thesis Title: “Synthesis and Anti-Breast Cancer Activity of Aromatic Amino Acid Phosphoramidates of Antiviral and Antitumor Nucleosides”

• Guruvasuthevan R. Thuduppathy, M.S Microbial Engineering, 2001, Thesis Title: "Design, Development and Evaluation of Ligands for Selective Protein Dimerization"

• Jonathan T. C. Carlson, Ph.D. Medicinal Chemistry, 2005, Thesis Title: “Chemically Self-Assembled Protein Nanostructures”

• Haiqing Wang, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2005, Thesis Title: “Studies of Arylamine N-acetyltransferases (Co-advisor with Dr. P. E. Hanna)

• Tsui-Fen Chou, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2006, Thesis Title: “Histidine Triad Nucleotide Binding Proteins (Hints): Nucleoside Phosphoramidases and Potential Regulators of Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases”

• Leila Datoo, M.S., Chemistry, 2008, Thesis Title:”AZT Phosphoramidates as Potential Antibacteiral Agents”

• Chen Xing, M. S. (Plan B), Chemistry, 2008, “Construction of Trivalent DHFR Based Oligomers”.

• Brian R. White, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2009, “Toward Therapeutic Nanoassemblies:  The Design and Modeling of Protein-Protein Interactions”.

• Yan Jia, Ph. D., Chemistry, 2010, "Development of Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4E (eIF4E) Antagonists as Potential Anticancer Therapeutics".

• Xin Zhou, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2010, " Catalytic Mechanism of the Hamster Arylamine N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) and Human Histidine Triad Nucleotide Binding Protein 1 (Hint1)".

• Qing Li, Ph. D., Candidate, Chemistry, 2010, “Chemically Self-Assembled Antibody Nanorings (CSANs): Design and Characterization of an Anti-CD3 IgM Biomimetic".

• Sanaa Bardaweel, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2010, “Defining the Catalytic and Kinetic Mechanism and Natural Function of the Highly Conserved Acyl-AMP Hydrolase, HINT1".

• Shui Li, M. S., Medicinal Chemistry, 2012, “Evaluation of Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4E (eIF4E) Antagonist 4Ei-1 in Mammalian Breast Cancer and Lung Cancer Cells : Chemosensitizaiton with Low Cytotoxicity”.

• Kari Schuett, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2013, “Chemically Self-Assembled Antibody Nanorings: A Multifaceted Approach to Anti-Cancer Therapeutics Using Techniques including Drug Delivery, Bispecific Targeting, and T-cell Surface Modifications”.

• Jing Liu, MS Plan B, 2013, Chemistry, “Synthesis of Chemical Dimerizers for Assembly of Chemically Self-Assembled Antibody Nanorings.”

• Amit Ganger, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2014, “Chemically Self-Assembled Antibody Nanostructures for the Delivery of Drug, DNA, Proteins and Cells.” 

• Jing Jing Shen, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2016, "Self-Assembled Antibody Nanorings as Prosthetic Antigen Receptors for Redirecting T Cells against Tumor Cells and as Platform for Delivery of Vaccine Adjuvants for Cancer Immunotherapy."

• Rachit Shaw, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2017, "Switch-on fluorescent/FRET probes to study human histidine triad nucleotide binding protein 1 (hHint1), a novel target for opioid tolerance and neuropathic pain."

• Jake Petersburg, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2018, “Targeting Cancer with Prosthetic Antigen Receptor T-cells”.

• Aniekan Okon, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2018, “Development of Chemical Probes for Intracellular Nucleotide Delivery, Profiling of the Metabolic Fate(s) of Nucleoside Monoester Phosphoramidates and a Nucleotide Mimetic Inhibitor of eIF4E"

• Cliff M. Csizmar, MD./Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2018, “From Ligands to Scaffolds to Cells: Engineered Proteins for Studying and Controlling Cellular Recognition"

• Harrison West, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2019, “Self-assembling phosphoramidate pronucleotides: enzymatic regulation and application towards therapeutic delivery”

• Ozgun Kilic, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2020, “Targeting EGFR family receptors with CSANs utilizing alternative protein scaffolds” 

• Alex Strom, Ph. D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2020, “Studies of Histidine Nucleotide Binding Protein Binding and Catalysis”

• Ellie Mews, Ph. D. Medicinal Chemistry, 2021, “Directing T Cells with Chemically Self-Assembled Nanorings as an Immunotherapy for Targeting Hematological Malignancies and Solid Tumors”

• Yiao Wang,  Ph. D., Chemistry, 2022, “Prenylated Chemically Self-Assembled Nanorings: A Versatile Platform for Macro-Chemical Biology”

• Maxwell Dillenburg, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2023 “Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Nucleoside Based Probes to Evaluate the Role of Human Histidine Triad Nucleotide Binding Protein 1 in Mu Opioid Receptor and N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Cross Regulation”

• Nicole Mai Bentz, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, 2023, "Harnessing the Synergistic Self-Assembly of G-Quadruplex-Peptide Phosphoramidates: From Elucidating Assembly Mechanisms and Hydrogel Characteristics to Applications in Supramolecular Drug Delivery"

• Sean Welter, M.S., Chemistry, 2023, "Bispecific Chemically Self-Assembled Nanorings for Targeted Anticancer Drug Delivery"

• Brandi McKnight, PhD, Medicinal Chemistry, 2024, "Chemically Self-Assembled Nanorings: A Versatile Platform for Cancer Immunotherapy and Cell Delivery"