Drug Discovery, Metabolism and Therapeutics Researchers
Fathi Halaweish
My group conducts research on the structural, synthetic, and medicinal chemistry of natural products, including modeling and synthesis of drug-like analogs for therapeutic applications. Our research has produced several cancer chemotherapeutic candidates targeting liver, lung, colon, pancreas, prostate, ovarian and cervical, melanoma, breast cancer and drug candidates for other diseases, such as type 2-diabetes.
M. Nurul Islam
My research is multidisciplinary and focuses on metabolic investigation of infectious and inflammatory diseases applying metabolomics and lipidomics approaches. The long-term goal of my research is to discover biomarkers for diagnosis, reveal disease progression and evaluate response to therapeutic intervention using sophisticated mass spectrometric techniques for characterization and profiling of metabolites, lipids, sugars, drugs and toxicants from diverse biological samples including serum, urine, saliva, tissue, bacteria and plants.
The goal of the Baack Lab is to understand the role of lipid metabolism, mitochondria and oxidative stress in the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD). Using a rat model, we discovered that excess circulating fats from maternal diabetes and a high-fat diet damage mitochondria in the developing fetal heart, leading to impaired metabolism, energy production, contractility and a greater risk of cell death (heart attack) in adulthood. With this understanding, our lab is developing methods to detect, prevent and treat heart disease in high-risk babies and the second generation.
