Samuel G. Awuah | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Samuel G. Awuah

Associate Professor

Contact Information

awuah@uky.edu

CP-315

CP-310 Lab

8593239561

8593239530

Research Interests

Chemical Biology
Synthetic Medicinal Chemistry
chemical immunology
Drug discovery

Affiliations

Chemistry
Biological
Inorganic
Organic
Pharmaceutical sciences

Awuah Group

Profile

Education

Ph.D. University of Oklahoma, 2013
Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2014-2016

Research

Research in the Awuah laboratory focuses on innovative drug discovery through computer-aided drug design, genetic editing, and rigorous chemical synthesis of organic and inorganic small molecule probes to interrogate human biology processes and disease states towards new therapeutics. We seek to evaluate efficacy of lead drug candidates in relevant disease models. Our laboratory is pivoted on three overarching themes involving, drug discovery, chemical biology, and chemical immunology.

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Repair shielding of Pt-DNA lesions in testicular germ cell tumors by high mobility group protein 4 imparts cisplatin hypersensitivity . Samuel G. Awuah, Imogen Riddell, and Stephen J. Lippard, PNAS, PNAS, 5, 950-955 (2017).
Chemical approach to positional isomers of glucose-platinum conjugates: specific cancer targeting through glucose-transporter mediated uptake in vitro and in vivo . Malay Patra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 138, 12541-12551 (2016).
Tobacco mosaic virus delivery of phenanthriplatin for cancer therapy . Anna E. Czapar, Yao-Rong Zheng, Imogen Riddell, Sourabh Shukla, Samuel G. Awuah, Stephen J. Lippard, and Nicole F. Steinmetz ACS Nano , 10, 4119-4126 (2016).
A Platinum(IV) Prodrug Preferentially Targets IDO Providing Enhanced Ovarian Cancer Immuno-Chemotherapy . Samuel G. Awuah, Yao-Rong Zheng, Peter M. Bruno, Michael T. Hemann, and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 137, 14854-14857 (2015).
Selective accumulation and specific tumor damage by folate receptor-targeted CA-4 prodrug as part of a combination of photodynamic therapy and site-specific chemotherapy . Gregory Nkepang, Moses Bio, Pallavi Rajaputra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Youngjae You, Cancer Res. , 75, 4394 (2015).
Necroptosis-Inducing Rhenium(V) Oxo Complexes . Kogularamanan Suntharalingam, Samuel G. Awuah, Peter M. Bruno, Timothy C. Johnstone, Fang Wang, Wei Lin, Yao-Rong Zheng, Julia E. Page, Michael T. Hemann and Stephen J. Lippard, J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 137, 2967-2974 (2015).
Dual functioning thieno-pyrrole fused BODIPY dyes for NIR optical imaging and photodynamic therapy – singlet oxygen generation without heavy halogen atom assistance. Ryan L. Watley, Samuel G. Awuah, Moses Bio, Robert Cantu, Habtom B. Gobeze, Vladimir N. Nesterov, Sushanta K. Das, Francis D'Souza, and Youngjae You, Chem. As. J. , 10, 1335-1343 (2015).
Folate receptor-mediated enhanced and specific delivery of far-red light-activatable prodrugs of Combretastatin A-4 to FR-positive tumor. Gregory Nkepang, Moses Bio, Pallavi Rajaputra, Samuel G. Awuah, and Youngjae You, Bioconjugate Chem. , 25, 2175-2188 (2014).
Thieno-pyrrole-Fused 4,4-Difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza- s-indacenes Fullerene Dyads: Utilization of Near-Infrared Sensitizers for Ultrafast Charge Separation in Donor- Acceptor Systems. Venugopal Bandi, Sushanta K. Das, Samuel G. Awuah, Youngjae You, and Francis D'Souza, J. Am.Chem. Soc., 136, 7571-7574 (2014).
Thieno-pyrrole Fused BODIPY Intermediate as a Versatile Platform to Multi-functional NIR Agents. Samuel G. Awuah, Sushanta K. Das, Francis D'Souza, and Youngjae You, Chem. As. J., 8, 3123-3132 (2013).