Department of Chemistry
Professor of Chemistry
(Malaria Pharmacology, Functional Genomics
Ph.D., Oregon Health Sciences University, 1982)
(206) 616-5179
rathod@chem.washington.edu
Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world, with about 2 million deaths and over 500 million infections per year. With the emergence of resistance against traditional drugs, there is an urgent need for new, affordable medicines against Plasmodium.
However, rational drug development remains an inexact science. The success and failure of drugs is often attributed to interesting chemical rationalizations but, individually, such explanations have had disappointing predictive value in pharmacology.
Faithful, disciplined application of chemical principles to increasingly sophisticated understanding of biology can lead to new drug targets, candidate drugs, and can help reveal new principles in biology. The value and power of chemical biology is best appreciated in the context of understanding and curing diseases.
Antia, M., Herricks, T. and Rathod, P.K. 2007 "Microfludic Modeling of Cell-Cell Interactions in Malaria Pathogenesis," PloS Pathogens, 3: e99
Mudeppa, D.G., Pang , C.K.T., Tsuboi, T., Endo, Y., Buckner, F.S., Varani, G., and Rathod, P.K. 2007 “Cell-free production of functional Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase” Mol. Biochem. Parasitol., 151, 216-219
Zhang, K. and Rathod, P.K."Divergent regulation of dihydrofolate reductase between malaria parasite and human host", Science (2002), 296, 545-547.
Rathod, P. K., Ganesan, K., Hayward, R.E., Bozdech, Z., and DeRisi, J., "DNA Microarrays for Malaria". Trends in Parasitology (2002), 18, 39-45.
Rathod, P. K. and McErlean, T., and Lee, P-C. "Variation in frequency of drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) (1997), 94, 9389-9393.
Baldwin, J., Michnoff, C. H., Roth, M., Malmquist, N. A., White, J., Rathod, P. K., and Phillips, M. A. 2005. “High-throughput screening for potent and selective inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase”, J. Biol. Chem 280, 21847-21853.
Eastman, R. T., White, J., Hucke, O., Bauer, K., Yokoyama, K., Nallan, L., Chakrabarti, D., Verlinde, C.L., Gelb, M.H., Rathod, P.K., Van Voorhis, W. C. 2005. “Resistance to a Protein Farnesyltransferase Inhibitor in Plasmodium falciparum”. J. Biol. Chem. 280, 13554-13559.
Medicine for Malaria Venture/NIH PPPP Award (Co-PI with Phillips and Charman), Lead optimization of DHODH inhibitors for malaria, 2007-2012.
Molecular Parasitology Meeting Co-Chair (with Soldati and Bangs), 2006-2009.
Ellison Medical Foundation, Senior Scholar Award (Global Infectious Diseases), 2002-2006,
Keystone Meeting Co-Chair (with Phillips and Hunter), Drugs against Parasitic Diseases, 2005