Shana Sturla
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Shana Sturla, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Office:
9-151 Weaver-Densford Hall
Telephone Number:
612-626-0496
E-mail Address:
sturl002@umn.edu
Sturla Group Website:
Sturla Research Site
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Education:
B.S., University of California at Berkeley, 1996
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
Research Interests:
Bioorganic and medicinal chemistry of carcinogenesis, chemoprevention, and chemotherapy.
Our research at the interface of chemistry and biology has a broad aim of correlating biological activity with chemical structure and reactivity. Many cancers are linked to environmental factors and can be characterized by alterations in nucleic acid structure. Likewise, DNA remodeling is a central strategy in inducing tumor cell death and evading viral infections. Our program unites contemporary research in synthetic organic, physical organic, medicinal, and analytical chemistry with the study of carcinogenesis and toxicology. It involves modern chemical synthesis of small molecules and DNA, enzyme inhibition studies, enzyme-mediated DNA transformations, the study of natural product-derived agents, mass spectrometric analysis of modified biomolecules, and other basic chemistry aspects of new biotechnologies. The mechanistic information regarding biological processes and the chemical tools developed in our research are expected to contribute to establishing new medical diagnostics, less toxic chemotherapy drugs, and disease prevention strategies.
For more information, visit the Sturla Research Site
Recent Publications:
Liu, X.; Villalta, P. W.; Sturla, S. J. Simultaneous determination of inositol and inositol phosphates in complex biological matrices: quantitative ion-exchange chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications In Mass Spectrometry, 2008, in press.
Liu, X.; Moody, E. C.; Hecht, S. S.; Sturla, S. J. Deoxygenated Phosphorothioate Inositol Phosphate Analogs: Synthesis, Phosphatase Stability, and Binding Affinity. Bioorg. Med. Chem., 2008, 16, 3419-3427.
Neels, J. F.; Gong, J.; Xiang, Y.; Sturla, S. J. Quantitative Correlation of Drug Bioactivation and Deoxyadenosine Alkylation by Acylfulvene. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2007, 20, 1513-1519.
Sturla, S. J. DNA-Adduct Profiles: Chemical Approaches to Addressing Small Molecule-DNA Damage Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. 2007, 11, 293-299.
Vaidyanathan, V. G.; Villalta, P. W.; Sturla, S. J. Nucleobase-dependent Reactivity of a Quinone Metabolite of Pentachlorophenol. Chem. Res. Toxicol., 2007, 20, 913-919.
Gong, J.; Sturla, S. J. A Synthetic Nucleoside Probe that Discerns a DNA Adduct from Unmodified DNA. J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129, 4882-4883.
Sturla, S. J.; Irwin, J. J.; Loeppky, R. N.; Mulvihill, M. J.; Searcey, M. Chemistry in Cancer Research: A Vital Partnership. ACS Chem. Biol. 2007, 2, 286-292.
Gong, J.; Vaidyanathan, V. G.; Yu, X.; Kensler, T. W.; Peterson, L. A.; Sturla, S. J. Depurinating Acylfulvene-DNA Adducts: Characterizing Cellular Chemical Reactions of a Selective Antitumor Agent. J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129, 2101-2111.
Gong, J.; Neels, J. F.; Yu, X.; Kensler, T. W.; Peterson, L. A.; Sturla, S. J. Investigating the Role of Stereochemistry in the Activity of Anticancer Acylfulvenes: Synthesis, Reductase-Mediated Bioactivation, and Cellular Toxicity. J. Med. Chem., 2006, 49, 2593-2599.
Hecht, S. S.; Huang, C.; Stoner, G. D.; Li, J.; Kenney, P. M. J.; Sturla, S. J.; Carmella, S. G. Identification of Cyanidin Glycosides as Potential Chemopreventive Constituents of Freeze-Dried Black Raspberries. Carcinogenesis, 2006, 27, 1617-1626.
Nguyen, T. N. T.; Bertagnolli, A. D.; Villalta, P. W.; Buhlmann, P.; Sturla, S.J. Characterization of a deoxyguanosine adduct of tetrachlorobenzoquinone: Dichlorobenzoquinone-1,N2-etheno-2’-deoxyguanosine. Chem. Res. Toxicol.2005, 18, 1770-1776.
