Samuel G. Awuah
Research Interests:
Chemical Biology
Synthetic Medicinal Chemistry
chemical immunology
Drug discovery
Profile
Education
Ph.D. University of Oklahoma, 2013
Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2014-2016
Research
Research in the Awuah laboratory focuses on innovative drug discovery through computer-aided drug design, genetic editing, and rigorous chemical synthesis of organic and inorganic small molecule probes to interrogate human biology processes and disease states towards new therapeutics. We seek to evaluate efficacy of lead drug candidates in relevant disease models. Our laboratory is pivoted on three overarching themes involving, drug discovery, chemical biology, and chemical immunology.
Selected Publications:
- Repair shielding of Pt-DNA lesions in testicular germ cell tumors by high mobility group protein 4 imparts cisplatin hypersensitivity . Samuel G. Awuah, Imogen Riddell, and Stephen J. Lippard, PNAS, PNAS, 5, 950-955 (2017).
- Chemical approach to positional isomers of glucose-platinum conjugates: specific cancer targeting through glucose-transporter mediated uptake in vitro and in vivo . Malay Patra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 138, 12541-12551 (2016).
- Tobacco mosaic virus delivery of phenanthriplatin for cancer therapy . Anna E. Czapar, Yao-Rong Zheng, Imogen Riddell, Sourabh Shukla, Samuel G. Awuah, Stephen J. Lippard, and Nicole F. Steinmetz ACS Nano , 10, 4119-4126 (2016).
- A Platinum(IV) Prodrug Preferentially Targets IDO Providing Enhanced Ovarian Cancer Immuno-Chemotherapy . Samuel G. Awuah, Yao-Rong Zheng, Peter M. Bruno, Michael T. Hemann, and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 137, 14854-14857 (2015).
- Selective accumulation and specific tumor damage by folate receptor-targeted CA-4 prodrug as part of a combination of photodynamic therapy and site-specific chemotherapy . Gregory Nkepang, Moses Bio, Pallavi Rajaputra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Youngjae You, Cancer Res. , 75, 4394 (2015).
- Necroptosis-Inducing Rhenium(V) Oxo Complexes . Kogularamanan Suntharalingam, Samuel G. Awuah, Peter M. Bruno, Timothy C. Johnstone, Fang Wang, Wei Lin, Yao-Rong Zheng, Julia E. Page, Michael T. Hemann and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 137, 2967-2974 (2015).
- Dual functioning thieno-pyrrole fused BODIPY dyes for NIR optical imaging and photodynamic therapy – singlet oxygen generation without heavy halogen atom assistance. Ryan L. Watley, Samuel G. Awuah, Moses Bio, Robert Cantu, Habtom B. Gobeze, Vladimir N. Nesterov, Sushanta K. Das, Francis D'Souza, and Youngjae You, Chem. As. J. , 10, 1335-1343 (2015).
- Folate receptor-mediated enhanced and specific delivery of far-red light-activatable prodrugs of Combretastatin A-4 to FR-positive tumor. Gregory Nkepang, Moses Bio, Pallavi Rajaputra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Youngjae You, Bioconjugate Chem. , 25, 2175-2188 (2014).
- Thieno-pyrrole-Fused 4,4-Difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza- s-indacenes Fullerene Dyads: Utilization of Near-Infrared Sensitizers for Ultrafast Charge Separation in Donor- Acceptor Systems. Venugopal Bandi, Sushanta K. Das, Samuel G. Awuah, Youngjae You, and Francis D'Souza, J. Am.Chem. Soc., 136, 7571-7574 (2014).
- Thieno-pyrrole Fused BODIPY Intermediate as a Versatile Platform to Multi-functional NIR Agents. Samuel G. Awuah, Sushanta K. Das, Francis D'Souza, and Youngjae You, Chem. As. J., 8, 3123-3132 (2013).
PubMed Publications*:
- "Synthesis and characterization of d<sub>5</sub> -barbarin for use in barbarin-related research."Drug testing and analysis(2022):Details. Full text
- "Chiral gold(III) complexes: speciation, <i>in vitro</i>, and <i>in vivo</i> anticancer profile."Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)(2022):Details. Full text
- "Gold(III)-P-chirogenic complex induces mitochondrial dysfunction in triple-negative breast cancer."iScience25.5(2022):104340.Details. Full text
- "Synthetic Control of Mitochondrial Dynamics: Developing Three-Coordinate Au(I) Probes for Perturbation of Mitochondria Structure and Function."JACS Au1.4(2021):439-449.Details.
- "Gold-Based Pharmacophore Inhibits Intracellular MYC Protein."Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)27.12(2021):4168-4175.Details. Full text
- "Tuning Cyclometalated Gold(III) for Cysteine Arylation and Ligand-Directed Bioconjugation."Inorganic chemistry60.19(2021):14582-14593.Details. Full text
- "Water-Soluble Gold(III)-Metformin Complex Alters Mitochondrial Bioenergetics in Breast Cancer Cells."ChemMedChem16.20(2021):3222-3230.Details. Full text
- "Anticancer gold(iii)-bisphosphine complex alters the mitochondrial electron transport chain to induce <i>in vivo</i> tumor inhibition."Chemical science12.21(2021):7467-7479.Details. Full text
- "Correction: Mild deprotection of the <i>N-tert</i>-butyloxycarbonyl (<i>N</i>-Boc) group using oxalyl chloride."RSC advances11.2(2020):780.Details. Full text
- "Exploring six-coordinate germanium(IV)-diketonate complexes as anticancer agents."Inorganica chimica acta503.1(2020):Details.
- "Distorted Gold(I)-Phosphine Complexes as Antifungal Agents."Journal of medicinal chemistry63.5(2020):2455-2469.Details. Full text
- "Synthesis, Characterization, and Antiproliferative Activity of Novel Chiral QuinoxP*AuCl<sub>2</sub> <sup>+</sup> Complexes."Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)25.23(2020):Details. Full text
- "Cancer cell-selective modulation of mitochondrial respiration and metabolism by potent organogold(iii) dithiocarbamates."Chemical science11.38(2020):10465-10482.Details. Full text
- "Small-Molecule Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase and PD-L1 Inhibitor Conjugates as Dual-Action Anticancer Agents."ACS omega4.7(2019):12584-12597.Details. Full text
- "A cell-based screening system for RNA polymerase I inhibitors."MedChemComm10.10(2019):1765-1774.Details. Full text
- "Revisiting the reactivity of tetrachloroauric acid with N,N-bidentate ligands: structural and spectroscopic insights."Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)48.6(2019):2093-2099.Details. Full text
- "Direct intramolecular carbon(sp<sup>2</sup>)-nitrogen(sp<sup>2</sup>) reductive elimination from gold(iii)."Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)48.18(2019):6273-6282.Details. Full text
- "Cyclometalated Gold(III) Complexes Bearing DACH Ligands."Inorganic chemistry58.14(2019):9326-9340.Details. Full text
- "Gold(I/III)-Phosphine Complexes as Potent Antiproliferative Agents."Scientific reports9.1(2019):12335.Details. Full text
- "Synthesis and crystal structure of 1,3-bis-(4-hy-droxy-phen-yl)-1<i>H</i>-imidazol-3-ium chloride."Acta crystallographica. Section E, Crystallographic communications75.Pt 9(2019):1311-1315.Details.
- "Mild deprotection of the <i>N</i>-<i>tert</i>-butyloxycarbonyl (<i>N</i>-Boc) group using oxalyl chloride."RSC advances10.40(0):24017-24026.Details. Full text
* Publications are automatically pulled from pubmed.gov based on a user-specific query. Results may include incorrect citations. See: Tutorial on improving PubMed results.