Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Precise Method To Identify Kinase Drug Targets In Complex Diseases: The First Step Towards Sustainable And Effective Treatment, Hasbanny Irisson, Marzieh Ayati

Research Symposium

Background: Kinases are enzymes that have proven to be important drug targets due to their role in critical biological mechanisms such as phosphorylation. Phosphorylation happens when a kinase catalyzes the transfer of a phosphate group to a protein in a phosphorylated site, which then becomes known as the substrate of the kinase. Any dysregulation of protein phosphorylation causes a wide range of complex diseases including cancer. Thus, discovering the links between kinases and their substrates (i.e. predicting kinase-substrate associations (KSAs)) is crucial in developing effective and sustainable treatments. Presently, less than 5% of phosphorylated sites have an associated kinase, and …

An Ngqd Based Diagnostic Tool For Pancreatic Cancer, Ryan Ketan Ajgaonkar, Bong Lee, Alina Valimukhametova, Anton Naumov, Giridhar Akkaraju

Research Symposium

Background: Pancreatic cancer remains difficult to detect at early stages which contributes to a poor five-yearsurvival rate. Therefore, early detection approaches based on novel technologies should be explored to address this critical health issue. Nanomaterials have recently emerged as frontrunners for diagnostic applications due to their small size in the 1-100 nm range, which facilitates one-on-one interactions with a variety of biomolecules like oligonucleotides and makes them suitable for a plethora of detection and delivery applications. In this work, the presence of specific pancreatic cancer miRNA (pre-miR-132) is detected utilizing the fluorescence properties of highly biocompatible nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots …

Synthesis Of Bioactive Heterocycles, Shaila Akter Shetu

Theses and Dissertations

The Discovery of a variety of heterocyclic drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases (e.g, neglected tropical diseases) is a medical breakthrough and inspiring for the research community as a whole. A wide range of natural, semi-synthetic, and synthetic anticancer drugs are synthesized using various methods. Among them, β -lactams stand out as a novel class of antibiotics that has different types of biological as well as anti-cancer properties. β -lactam has become a premier and active research subject towards the development of revolutionary anti-cancer drugs. In recent years, a large amount of investigations have been done to …

Total Synthesis Of Cytotoxic Mansouramycins From Amino Acids, Beatriz Gamez

Theses and Dissertations

Natural products produced by plants, animals, and microorganisms are of significant importance in chemistry for being major sources of molecular scaffolds essential for new drug discovery. Mansouramycins are cytotoxic bioactive compounds containing isoquinoline skeletons with substituents on the quinone and pyridine rings that may be difficult to synthesize. Synthetic processes exist for compounds B and D, however, there exists an absence of simple synthetic approaches to all four alkaloids.

This project aims to provide a general total synthetic pathway to Mansouramycins A—D from amino acids for possible use in cancer treatment via these isoquinolinequinones. Preliminary experimentation suggests there may be …

Chemical Modification And In Silico Validation Of Medicinally Privileged Molecular Scaffolds As Kras And Sars-Cov-2 Protease Inhibitors, Precious M. Okwuchukwu

Theses and Dissertations

Coronavirus disease was declared a global pandemic by WHO in March 2020, cancer is the second leading cause of death by a disease. Several scientists around the world are working relentlessly to discover an effective remedy to eradicate these deadly diseases. A natural polyphenol (magnolol) has been isolated from a tree Magnolia grandiflora (family Magnoliaceae) found on UTRGV campuses. This research is focused on design of a series of chemically modified sulfonyl derivatives based on the isolated magnolol framework and other medicinally privileged molecular scaffolds framework that can effectively bind to the COVID-19 main protease, SARS- CoV-2 3CL protease …

Analysis Of The Functional Relationship Of Protein Kinase Families Using Phospho-Proteomics Data, David A. Parra Peña

Theses and Dissertations

As cancer research advances, Mass-spectrometry based proteomics is becoming a widely used technique for proteome characterization. Phosphoproteomics is a specific type of proteomics that characterizes proteins with the reversible post-translational modification of phosphorylation PTM), which has allowed the identifications of thousands of phosphorylation sites. These phosphorylation sites, also known as substrates, are known to interact with a protein type named kinases. Studies have shown that abnormal phosphorylation activity is related to cancer diseases. Moreover, these kinases are divided into families, based on the similarity of their catalytic domain, as this part of their amino acid sequence determines a large part …

Vitamin D: Controversy Cancer And Beyond, Cristian J. Rosales, Debasish Bandyopadhyay

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vitamins are an essential part to wellbeing. This was not something always known however, as the Germ theory was the accepted thesis of the 18th century. It was found that certain accessory factors helped mitigate and even cure these diseases such as beriberi, scurvy, and rickets. Accessory factors, later coined vitamins by Casimir Funk, are an essential constituent of the human diet. Vitamin D is technically not a vitamin but functions as a steroid hormone whose most well-known purpose is calcification of the human skeleton. This helps prevent osteomalacia in adults and rickets, a serious problem in children due to …

Key Enzymes In Cancer: Mechanism Of Action And Inhibition With Anticancer Agents, Debasish Bandyopadhyay, Gabriel Lopez, Stephanie Cantu, Samantha Balboa, Annabel Garcia, Christina Silva, Diandra Valdes

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Several enzymes play significant role in different stages of cancer including proliferation, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis. Mechanism of actions of a few key enzymes along with their inhibitors have been discussed with particular attentation to riboneucleotide reductase, thymidylate synthease, topoisomerase II, interleukins, cell survival proteins and aminopeptidase N.

Cytidine Deaminase As A Molecular Target In Cancer: An Insight, Claudia A. Almaraz, Debasish Bandyopadhyay

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death globally. Although more than 400 varieties of cancer have been reported, based on cell lines, still the actual reason of all types of cancer is not very clear. Several internal and external factors have been identified and the study is ongoing. Up to now about 73 proteins have been identified that are capable to influence directly various phases of cancer including mutation, cell proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Cytidine deaminase is one of the important proteins that is responsible for various types of cancer that includes gastric, liver, biliary tract, bladder, …

Statistical Modeling Of Microrna Expression With Human Cancers, Ke-Sheng Wang, Yue Pan, Chun Xu

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs (containing about 22 nucleotides) that regulate gene expression. MiRNAs are involved in many different biological processes such as cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, fat metabolism, and human cancer genes; while miRNAs may function as candidates for diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and predictors of drug response. This paper emphasizes the statistical methods in the analysis of the associations of miRNA gene expression with human cancers and related clinical phenotypes: 1) simple statistical methods include chi-square test, correlation analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVA; 2) regression models include linear and logistic regression; 3) survival analysis approaches such as …

Curcumin: A Folklore Remedy From Kitchen On The Way To Clinic As Cancer Drug, Debasish Bandyopadhyay

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Numerous compounds are widely distributed in nature and many of these possess medicinal/biological/pharmacological activity. Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from the rhizomes (underground stems) of Curcuma longa Linn (a member of the ginger family, commonly known as turmeric) is a culinary spice and therapeutic used in India for thousands of years to induce color and flavor in food as well as to treat a wide array of diseases. The origin of turmeric as spice and folklore medicine is so old that it is lost in legend. Curcumin has many beneficial pharmacological effects which includes, but are not limited with, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, …

Farmer To Pharmacist: Curcumin As An Anti-Invasive And Antimetastatic Agent For The Treatment Of Cancer, Debasish Bandyopadhyay

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

A huge number of compounds are widely distributed in nature and many of these possess medicinal/biological/pharmacological activity. Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from the rhizomes (underground stems) of Curcuma longa Linn (a member of the ginger family, commonly known as turmeric) is a culinary spice and therapeutic used in India for thousands of years to induce color and flavor in food as well as to treat a wide array of diseases. The origin of turmeric as spice and folklore medicine is so old that it is lost in legend. Curcumin has many beneficial pharmacological effects which includes, but are not limited …

Thermosensitive Magnetic Nanoparticles For Self-Controlled Hyperthermia Cancer Treatment, Karen S. Martirosyan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Magnetic nanoparticles show remarkable phenomena such as superparamagnetism, high field irreversibility and high saturation magnetization [1]. The study of magnetic nanoparticles has been a very active research field due to many important applications such as drug delivery, imaging and hyperthermia cancer treatment [2]. Hyperthermia has been used for many years to treat a wide variety of tumors in patients and used as well as an adjunct to cancer radiotherapy or chemotherapy [3,4]. Its use is based on the fact that tumor cells are more sensitive to temperature in the range of 42–45°C (which yields necrosis, coagulation, or carbonization) than normal …