Outcomes of Dr. Amy Deveau’s 2020 research conducted with biochemistry major Noah Garrison (21′) in collaboration with Dr. George Shields’ computational chemistry group at Furman University were presented at the 12th Annual Virtual South Carolina (SC) INBRE Research conference on Saturday, January 23, 2020. The research collaboration was funded by seed money to Dr. Deveau by UNE’s Research Infrastructure Fund and by NIH via SC INBRE to Dr. Shields. Specifically, the INBRE grant funded Schrodinger software and supported two Furman undergraduate research students, Lauren Jones and Brenna Outten, in summer 2020.
https://sites.google.com/view/scinbre/learning/science-symposium/2021-science-symposium?authuser=0
Furman undergraduate Lauren Jones presented “Conformational Analysis of Antagonists to theµ Opioid Receptor” focusing on the agonist BU72, while Brenna Outten presented “Conformational Analysis of Antagonists to the µ Opioid Receptor”. Collectively, this research used Schrodinger’s software Maestro and contributes to the understanding of how conformational bias enables binding preferences for MOR agents. The computational outcomes are being used by the team to design and synthesize novel MOR modulators.
Dr. Deveau, a professor of chemistry in the School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences (CAS), attended the virtual conference with Garrison and biochemistry major Carolyn Curley (23′), who is the newest student to join Dr. Deveau’s group. Shields’ post-doctoral research associate Togo Odbadrakh also contributed significantly to the research.