PROOF OF EXPERIENCE

Published research & scientific credentials.

Selected peer-reviewed publications demonstrate a background in structure-based drug design, molecular docking, medicinal chemistry, and experimental pharmaceutical research.

FEATURED PUBLICATION

A published molecular docking study

Our 2018 fluoroquinolone study combined docking-based interaction hypotheses with synthesis and experimental testing. The original work used the SYBYL-X docking suite.

Representative docking explored whether extended N-1 substituents could approach the active-site tyrosine in a topoisomerase–DNA complex. The published figure shows six predicted poses of a quinolone derivative.

Read the open manuscript and view Figure 2 ↗

Towle et al. 2018 Figure 2: six overlaid predicted docking poses of an N-1-modified fluoroquinolone near the topoisomerase active-site tyrosine
Published molecular docking figure — Towle et al. (2018), Figure 2. Representative docking of N-1 butylamine derivative 9b near the active-site phosphotyrosine; six overlaid predicted ligand poses. Source publication and figure ↗.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Selected peer-reviewed publications

Seven selected articles span computational and structure-based investigations, medicinal chemistry, drug mechanisms, and molecular research.

  1. 2018

    Towle, T. R., et al. (2018). Design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel N-1 fluoroquinolone derivatives: Probing for binding contact with the active site tyrosine of gyrase. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 28(10), 1903–1910.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2018.03.085 ↗

    Computational docking and experimental medicinal chemistry.

  2. 2014

    Drlica, K., Mustaev, A., Towle, T. R., et al. (2014). Bypassing fluoroquinolone resistance with quinazolinediones: Studies of drug–gyrase–DNA complexes having implications for drug design. ACS Chemical Biology, 9(12), 2895–2904.

    DOI: 10.1021/cb500629k ↗

    Drug–target interaction studies with computational components.

  3. 2019

    Lentz, S. R. C., Chheda, P. R., Oppegard, L. M., Towle, T. R., et al. (2019). The C7-aminomethylpyrrolidine group rescues the activity of a thio-fluoroquinolone. Biochimie, 160, 24–27.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.biochi.2019.02.002 ↗

    Medicinal chemistry and structure–activity investigations.

  4. 2019

    Oppegard, L. M., et al. (2019). Novel N-1 substituted fluoroquinolones inhibit human topoisomerase I activity and exhibit anti-proliferative activity. Investigational New Drugs, 37(2), 378–383.

    DOI: 10.1007/s10637-018-0666-x ↗

    Investigational drug discovery and biochemical evaluation.

  5. 2016

    Oppegard, L. M., et al. (2016). Fluoroquinolones stimulate the DNA cleavage activity of topoisomerase IV by promoting the binding of Mg²⁺ to the second metal binding site. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1860(3), 569–575.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.bbagen.2015.12.019 ↗

    Mechanistic studies of drug–enzyme interactions.

  6. 2013

    Towle, T., Chang, I., Kerns, R. J., and Bhanot, P. (2013). Chemical probes of a trisubstituted pyrrole to identify its protein target(s) in Plasmodium sporozoites. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 23(6), 1874–1877.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2013.01.010 ↗

    Chemical probes and target identification.

  7. 2008

    Tureček, F., et al. (2008). Hidden histidine radical rearrangements upon electron transfer to gas-phase peptide ions: Experimental evidence and theoretical analysis. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 130(44), 14584–14596.

    DOI: 10.1021/ja8036367 ↗

    Molecular mechanisms and theoretical analysis.

DOCTORAL RESEARCH

University of Iowa · 2013

Towle, T. R. Synthesis of novel fluoroquinolone derivatives toward understanding aspects of function. Doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa.

View dissertation repository ↗

CONTINUING WORK

Current computational research

Ongoing research explores reproducible molecular-modeling, docking and molecular-dynamics workflows. New original figures and technically reviewed case studies will be added as publication and disclosure decisions permit.

Existing papers demonstrate historical computational research; newer software methods are described separately as current service capabilities.