Dr. Edward L. D'Antonio

My training is in Chemistry and I received my Ph.D. at North Carolina State University in 2010. From 2010-2013, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania where I was trained in structural biology and medicinal chemistry. I have published a total of 20 scientific articles/patents and I have mentored 22 undergraduates at USC Beaufort. In 2016, Dr. Mercaldi and I worked together on an HTS campaign, in which we ran a primary screen of 13,040 compounds against the target glucokinase in Trypanosoma cruzi (the etiological agent that causes Chagas' disease). We were successful in finding novel inhibitors and the manuscript of the project was published last year.

My webpage: www.uscb.edu/edant

Since 2013, the goal of my research program has been to identify chemical compounds that inhibit protein targets of pathogenic microorganisms. The drug discovery strategies that I employ include structure-based drug design, structure-activity relationships, and high-throughput screening. Compounds are further developed by experimentally searching for higher efficacy and lower toxicity than clinically used drugs for the treatment of neglected tropical diseases.

As the coronavirus pandemic began this past March, my research focus has shifted towards the drug development to combat this novel virus, as well as MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and other viruses of the betacoronavirus family that have the potential to cause epidemics. In collaboration with Dr. Gustavo Mercaldi, this proposed research project will particularly involve the screening of a key viral protein target in SARS-CoV-2 against two separate compound libraries totaling 30,000 compounds. We expect to observe inhibition from a fluorescence-based assay. Identification of potent inhibitors will permit drug candidates to proceed through a viable drug discovery pipeline.

May 2018