Indrajeet Sharma
Associate Professor, Chemistry & BiochemistryStephenson Life Sciences Research Center 2160405-325-4581 isharma at ou dot edu https://chem.ou.edu/indrajeet-sharma Ph.D., Organic Synthesis - Wayne State University, 2006Research:
Our laboratory engages in the synthesis, assessment, and modification of potential therapeutic leads derived from natural products for the treatment of cancer and neurological disorders. To accomplish our goals, we use two complementary approaches: "isolation/semi-synthesis and method development/total synthesis" of natural products to access a library of diverse analogues to study the structure-activity relationships (SAR). To advance our compounds, we are having multidisciplinary collaborations with leading laboratories having combined expertise in natural product isolation, organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry and molecular pharmacology. We screen our compounds in collaboration with the other labs and at the NIMH Psychoactive Drug Screening Program against 50 different CNS receptors to know their initial binding and functional activity. Our current research project is to identify new natural products based probes to understand kappa-opioid receptor pharmacology in order to develop new therapeutic agents to treat pain, addiction and cocaine abuse.
Selected Publications:
Sharma, I., Wurst, J., and Tan, D. S. (2014) Solvent-dependent divergent functions of Sc(OTf)3 in stereoselective epoxide-opening spiroketalizations. Org. Lett.16: 2474–2477.
Lu, X., Zhou, R., Sharma, I., Li, X., Kumar, G., Swaminathan, S., Tonge, P. J., and Tan, D. S. (2012) Stable analogues of OSB-AMP: Potent inhibitors of MenE, the o-succinylbenzoate-CoA synthetase from bacterial menaquinone biosynthesis. ChemBioChem.13: 129–136.
Sharma, I. and Crich, D. (2011) Direct Fmoc-chemistry-based solid phase synthesis of peptidyl thioesters. J. Org. Chem.76: 6518–6524.
Crich, D. and Sharma, I. (2010) Influence of the O3 protecting group on stereoselectivity in the preparation of C-mannopyranosides with 4,6-O-benzylidene protected donors. J. Org. Chem. 75: 8383–8391.
Crich, D. and Sharma, I. (2009) Triblock peptide and peptide thioester synthesis with reactivity-differentiated sulfonamides and peptidyl thioacids. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 48: 7591–4794.
Crich, D. and Sharma, I. (2009) Epimerization-free block synthesis of peptides from thioacids and amines with Sanger’s and Mukaiyama’s reagents. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 48: 2355–2358.
Crich, D. and Sharma, I. (2008) Is donor-acceptor hydrogen bonding necessary for 4,6-O-benzylidene directed β-mannopyranosylation. Stereoselective synthesis of β-C-mannopyranosides and α-C-glucopyaronosides. Org. Lett. 10: 4731–4734.
Mal, D., Ray, S., and Sharma, I. (2007) Direct access to 1,4-dihydroxyanthraquinones: The Hauser annulation reexamined with p-quinones. J. Org. Chem. 72: 4981–4984.