About

Interests

Biochemistry, Chemical Biology, Organic Chemistry, Bio-Organic Chemistry, Biophysical Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Synthesis

Education

• BS, University of Missouri, 1996
• PhD, Washington University School of Medicine, 2002
• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2002-2006

Tochtrop Research Group Site »

Research Statement

Research in our lab centers on the chemistry and biology of lipids. Our central interests revolve around the identification of novel small molecules, and careful investigations into the chemistry and physiology of known molecules. From a training point of view, our work spans from pure synthetic organic chemistry to animal biology in disease models, and students in the laboratory have projects involving: target oriented synthesis, diversity oriented synthesis, protein biochemistry, metabolomics, and cell signaling. Our laboratory specializes in organic synthesis and protein biochemistry and we have developed strong collaborative relationships with other research groups at CWRU School of Medicine, and the Cleveland Clinic.

We are generally interested in two physiologic processes that are primarily driven by an exquisite network of small molecules:

• Retinoid Metabolism and Signaling in Diseases of the Eye
• The Linkage Between Oxidative Stress Pathways and Lipid Peroxidation
• The Role of the Fatty Acid Binding Protein Family in Lipid Signaling

Selected Publications

• Chen Y, Chen Y, Jastrzebska B, Golczak M, Gulati S, Tang H, Seibel W, Li X, Jin H, Han Y, Gao S, Zhang J, Liu X, Heidari-Torkabadi H, Stewart PL, Harte WE, Tochtrop GP, Palczewski K. A novel small molecule chaperone of rod opsin and its potential therapy for retinal degeneration. Nat Commun. 2018; 9:1976.
• Badiee M, Tochtrop GP. Bile Acid Recognition by Mouse Ileal Bile Acid Binding Protein. ACS Chem Biol. 2017 56:3049-3056.
• Kiser PD, Zhang J, Badiee M, Li Q, Shi W, Sui X, Golczak M, Tochtrop GP, Palczewski K. Catalytic mechanism of a retinoid isomerase essential for vertebrate vision. Nat Chem Biol. 2015;11:409-15.

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