Mohammad Parvez Alam

Address:

Drug Discovery Laboratory,
UCLA Department of Neurology,
710 Westwood Plaza, Reed Building - Room 3138,
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1769.

Research Interests:

• Organic Synthesis, Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Modeling and Chemical Biology.
• Pharmacokinetic evaluation of small molecules to design optimal therapeutic drugs.
• Flow chemistry utilization for drug discovery.

Biography:

• Dr. Alam has over 8 years of expertise that lies primarily in the area of synthetic organic chemistry.
• During his Ph.D. under Professor Sidney M. Hecht at the Center for BioEnergetics in the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, he synthesized and performed PK analysis of a number of multifunctional radical quenchers (MRQ's).
• These MRQ's have potential utility in treating neurodegenerative and mitochondrial disorders.
• He has synthesized a lead compound on a multi-gram scale for efficacy studies in animal models. Earlier in his graduate studies, he employed solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) to make novel DeglycoBleomycins (antitumor, antibiotics).
• Dr. Alam has also synthesized fluorescent DNA probes to study Bleomycin-DNA interaction and DNA-Protein interaction.

Current Research:

• Dr. Alam's current research focuses on the use of flow chemistry for the development of therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease (AD), other neurodegenerative disorders, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Education:

1. 2007-2009    Master of Science in Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), INDIA.
2. 2009-2014    Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
3. 2014-2015    Postdoctoral Research Associate, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
4. 2015-Present    Postdoctoral Scholar and Fellow, Drug Discovery Lab, UCLA Neurology.

Publications:

1. P Talukder, S Chen, B Roy, P Yakovchuk, MM Spiering, MP Alam, MM Madathil, C Bhattacharya, SJ Benkovic and SM Hecht. Cyanotryptophans as novel fluorescent probes for studying protein conformational changes and DNA–Protein interaction. (submitted)
2. SM Hecht, OM Khdour, MP Alam, S Dey, and Y Chen. Multifunctional radical quenchers exhibiting metabolic stability and bioavailability. (patent in press)
3. MP Alam, B Jagodzinska, J Campagna, P Spilman, V John. C-O bond formation in a microfluidic reactor: high yield SNAr substitution of heteroaryl chlorides. Tetrahedron Letter 2016;57(19):2059-2062. doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2016.03.095
4. B Roy, C Tang, MP Alam, and SM Hecht. DNA methylation reduces binding and cleavage by bleomycin. Biochemistry 2014;53:6103.
5. C Tang, A Paul, MP Alam, B Roy, WD Wilson, and SM Hecht. A short DNA sequence confers strong bleomycin binding to hairpin DNAs. J Am Chem Soc 2014;136:13715.
6. MP Alam, OM Khdour, PM Arce, Y Chen, B Roy, S Dey, WG Johnson, and SM Hecht. Cytoprotective pyridinol antioxidants as potential therapeutic agents for neurodegenerative and mitochondrial diseases. Bioorg Med Chem 2014;22:4935.
7. S Kendrick, H Kang, MP Alam, MM Madathil, P Agrawal, V Gokhale, D Yang, SM Hecht, and LH Hurley. The dynamic character of the BCL2 promoter i-Motif provides a mechanism for modulation of gene expression by compounds that bind selectively to the alternative DNA hairpin structure. J Am Chem Soc 2014;136:4161.
8. M Agarwal, MP Alam, and C Chakravarty. Thermodynamic, diffusional, and structural anomalies in rigid-body water models. J Phys Chem B 2011;115:6935.