Nine Students Presented at the Midwest ACS Meeting in Ames
Alex Duncan
Recent Publications
Reevaluating the Substrate Specificity of the L-Type Amino Acid Transporter (LAT1)
In collaboration with Professor Giacomini at UCSF and Professor Schlessinger at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, the Thomas group recently published our work in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (July 2018).
ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, Spring 2018
Oral Presentation: LAT1 membrane transporter: reevaluating the meaning of L and A
Thomas, A. A.; Chien, H.-C.; Zur, A. A.; Giacomini, K. M.; Colas, C.; Schlessinger, A.; Lin, L.; Finke, K.; Augustyn, E.; Springer, S.; Stoner, L.; Flint, A.; Heeren, N.; Hansen, L.; Anthony, A.; Hernandez, C.; Venteicher, B.; Campbell, J.; Hall, C.
Poster: Optimization of LAT1 affinity for meta-substituted phenylalanine analogs
Springer, S.; Stoner, L.; Finke, K.; Anthony, A.; Flint, A.; Bauer, J.; Hernandez, C.; Chien, H.-C.; Giacomini, K. M.; Colas, C.; Schlessinger, A.; Thomas, A. A.
Poster: Synthesis and SAR of alpha-quaternary phenylalanine analogs as LAT1 substrates
Venteicher, B.; Hall, C.; Campbell, J.; Hernandez, C.; Flint, A.; Chien, H.-C.; Giacomini, K. M.; Colas, C.; Schlessinger, A.; Thomas, A. A.
Poster: LAT1 selectivity for L and D amino acids
Hall, C.; Venteicher, B.; Chien, H.-C.; Giacomini, K. M.; Colas, C.; Schlessinger, A.; Thomas, A. A.
Visiting Historic Sites
Brooklynn, Colton, Dr. Thomas, Seth
Enjoying New Orleans Cuisine
Brooklynn, Seth, Colton, Dr. Thomas
NIH Funding
Identification of new LAT-1 transporter substrates for drug delivery
In 2017, Dr. Thomas received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) for a project entitled “Identification of new LAT-1 transporter substrates for drug delivery” (R15 NS099981). His research group seeks to exploit one of the body’s natural mechanisms for transporting amino acids, the LAT-1 protein, for targeted drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and cancer cells that express this transporter. Guided by computational models developed in collaboration with Prof. Avner Schlessinger at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, students in the Thomas lab apply organic chemistry techniques to synthesize amino acid mimetics and drug-amino acid conjugates, which are then tested in cells engineered to express LAT-1 by his collaborator, Dr. Kathleen Giacomini at University California San Francisco. This research project has broad applications for treating many different diseases both in the brain and other tissues where LAT-1 is heavily expressed, including cancer.
