COBRE Discovery of Chemical Probes and Therapeutic Leads
an NIH Center of Biomedical Research ExcellenceCOBRE Team
Our COBRE faculty have been recognized with the nation’s most competitive awards to young scientists
Accomplishments Include:- 80 COBRE supported publications by junior investigators (~25% in IF 11.0+ journals, ~50% in IF 5.0+ journals)
- >60 additional publications cite core facilities
- COBRE investigators gave nearly 300 invited talks
- Five junior investigators have graduated to independent status
- 6 NIH grants (5 R01s, 1 U01) were awarded to four junior investigators and two COBRE hires
- Recognized through >20 national awards, including
- Sloan Foundation Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2)
- Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences (2)
- Cottrell Research Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement
- Inter-American Photochemical Society Young Investigator Award
- NSF Career awards (5)
- American Chemical Society Rising Star Award
- Dreyfus Foundation Environmental Chemistry Mentor
- Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award
- ACS Inorganic Chemistry Undergraduate Research Mentor Award
- Komen Career Catalyst Research Award
Awards to Phase I Investigators
![Phase I Investigators](https://sites.udel.edu/cobrediscovery/files/2015/09/CHEM-CHEG-Group_Photo-120415-008-2bz1mn0-cropped-23rkayo.jpg)
- Four NIH funded COBRE ‘graduates’ (D. Watson; M. Watson; Lyman; Grimes)
- Five NIH R01 awards (D. Watson; M. Watson; Lyman; Chain; Wei)
- NIH U01 (Grimes
- Three NSF grants (D. Watson; M. Watson; Chain)
- Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (Grimes)
- Two Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellows (Grimes, Rosenthal)
- Two Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences (A. Kloxin, Grimes)
- Two Cottrell Research Scholars by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (D. Watson, Grimes)
- Inter-American Photochemical Society Young Investigator Award (Rosenthal)
- Five NSF Faculty Early Career Development Awards (D. Watson, M. Watson, Grimes, Rosenthal, Kloxin)
- American Chemical Society WCC Rising Star Award (M. Watson)
- ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator (Grimes)
- Dreyfus Foundation Environmental Chemistry Mentor (Rosenthal)
- Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award (Rosenthal)
- ACS Inorganic Chemistry Undergraduate Research Mentor Award (Rosenthal)
- Komen Career Catalyst Research Award (Kloxin)
- Mitzutani Glycoscience Award (Grimes)
- NIH K01 Award (Yien)
- NIH R03 Award (Yien)
- ACS Polymer Materials Science & Engineering Young Investigator (C. Kloxin)
- NSF CAREER Award (Neunuebel)
- Dept. of Energy Young Investigator (Gundlach)
Current Project Leaders
Karl Schmitz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences Dissection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clp protease assembly, activity and regulation Maria Ramona Neunuebel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences Molecular mechanisms supporting bacterial survival within immune cellsPhase I COBRE “graduates”
April Kloxin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering In vitro neural disease models for high throughput screening Catherine Leimkuhler Grimes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry The Leimkuhler Grimes Group is using carbohydrate chemistry and bacterial cell wall engineering to aid in the understanding of inflammatory disease. Don Watson, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Organic Chemistry Don Watson’s group explores new transition metal catalysts for organic chemistry. We are developing new reactions for use in both organic synthesis and library development for medicinal chemistry. Mary Watson, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Organic Chemistry Mary Watson’s group uses transition metal catalysts to develop enantioselective and stereospecific reactions. Their goal is greater efficiency and novel bond constructions in the synthesis of chiral drug-like molecules. Joel Rosenthal, PhD., Associate Professor, Inorganic Chemistry The Rosenthal Group is developing electrochemical techniques for high throughput screening to discover new drug leads and is developing new approaches to photodynamic therapy. Ed Lyman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Physics and Physical Chemistry Drug discovery is a long and costly process. The Lyman Group is developing computational methods that will enable medicinal chemists to streamline the drug discovery process.Phase II COBRE “graduates”
Catherine Fromen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Surface-functionalized nanoparticle adjuvants for pulmonary immune modulation Jeffrey Mugridge, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry Molecular mechanisms supporting bacterial survival within immune cells Aditya Kunjapur, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Designing real-time bacterial reporting of enzymes secreted by mammalian cells Juan Perilla, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of small-molecule disruption of viral replication machineryCOBRE hires
Phase I, the center supported the hire of three faculty. William Chain. Studies the area of natural products synthesis and medicinal chemistry. Shuo Wei. Studies the regulation of cell signaling by extracellular metalloproteinases in development and disease, and he is PI of an active R01 from NIGMS. Karl Schmitz. Studies Clp protease function and regulation with small molecule probes Phase II Hires Ariel Alperstein. is focused on developing new ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy techniques for investigating biological systems on the sub-micron scale Marco Messina is focused on the creation of functional macromolecular materials for probing biological systemsPhase I Pilot Project Awardees
Lars Gundlach. Ultrafast spectroscopy of photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy
Arun Kumar. Development of a nanoparticle-based theranostic agent to treat IBC metastasis
Eric Bloch. Design of metal-organic cage molecules for aerosol pulmonary theranostics
Catherine Fromen. Design of metal-organic cage molecules for aerosol pulmonary theranostics
Ramona Neunuebel. Molecular mechanisms supporting bacterial survival within immune cells
Christopher Kloxin. CNA aptamer screening library for TNF binding
William Chain. Englerin A – A future human chemotherapeutic
Aimee Jaramillo-Lambert. Molecular mechanisms of Topoisomerase II regulation in meiotic chromosome segregation
Edward Lyman. Measuring and simulating adenosine receptor ligand unbinding kinetics
Phase II Pilot Project Awardees
Jeremy Bird. Developing riboCapZyme-seq, a new method for the detection and quantitation of metabolite capping on translated RNAs
Jodi Hadden-Perilla. Elucidating and flipping the conformational switch that regulates hepatitis B virus capsid assembly
Alexei Kananenka. Computational modeling of radiolabeled nanomaterials for cancer therapy
Aditya Kunjapur. Investigating biosynthesis of a photolabile amino acid for polypeptide control
Molly Sutherland. Development of CcsBA, the holocytorchrome c synthase, as a novel antibiotic target
Emil Hernandez-Pagan.Tailored nanocrystals for NIR generation of ROS for photodynamic therapy
Ariel Alperstein. Investigating the effect of microplastics on chaperone protein structure and function
Austin Keeler. Deciphering the molecular landscape of neurotrophin driven lineage decisions by neural mass cytometry
Marco Messina. 3-Dimensional Cluster-Based Materials for Multimodal Bioimaging of Reactive Oxygen/Nitrogen Species