Colleen Evans

Professor Evans’ research interests are focused on developing new and general synthetic organic methods for use in the design of novel compounds of biological and medicinal interest. The main current emphasis is twofold: 1) the application of selective thionation reactions to compounds of biological interest such as heterocyclic compounds and short peptides and 2) the development of novel thionating agents that are selective and practical for use in a wide variety of synthetic transformations. Professor Evans has also educational research interests which include retention of science students at the undergraduate level, exploration of innovative teaching methods and curriculum design to enhance the learning experience of science students, and increasing the number of science majors who become middle school and high school science teachers

One avenue of thionation reactions has been applied to serotonin receptors HTR1A/2 partial agonist/antagonist small molecules such as the clinical candidate adatanserin which led to the discovery of a novel agent thioadatanserin with EC50 of 6.7 nM against 5-HTR1A and IC50 of 62.3 nM against 5HTR2A as a potential agent for the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders. Thioadatanserin was further modified by a novel tandem dialkylation reaction giving unexpected analogues.  The structure of one analogue was determined using X- ray single structure crystallography.

In another project, research is being carried out with our undergraduate research students to discover covalent peptidomimetic inhibitors of calpain enzymes as potential treatment of diseases such as muscular dystrophy.

Recently, she discovered a novel thionating agent which was termed TMPT whose X-ray crystal structure indicates high degree of symmetry that may be useful in achieving desired selectivity in thionation reaction. The scope of this novel thionating agent is being actively investigated.