Donald J. Abraham, Ph.D. Emeritus Faculty of Medicinal Chemistry dabraham@hsc.vcu.edu (804) 828-7575 BioTech I 212

Dr. Abraham’s research is interdisciplinary and focuses on structure based drug design including X-ray crystallography, molecular modeling, synthetic medicinal chemistry, and structure function studies involving allosteric proteins. Targeted therapeutic areas of research include: Sickle Cell Anemia, radiation oncology, ischemic cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Primary areas of drug discovery revolve around allosteric proteins (hemoglobin, P53 and other non-heme proteins) that may be regulated by synthetic allosteric modulators to treat the disease states mentioned above. Such studies have advanced two molecules into nine separate clinical trials; two phase one studies in the Sickle Cell Anemia and seven phase one and two studies for treatment of brain tumors receiving cranial radiation, for use in cardiopulmonary bypass surgery and for treatment of chronic effort angina.

1. D. J. Abraham, G. E. Kellogg, Jo Holt and G. K. Ackers: Hydropathic Analysis of the Non-Covalent Interactions between Molecular Subunits of Structurally-Characterized Hemoglobins, Journal of Molecular Biology, 272, 613-632, 1997.
2. L. Kiger, A. Dumoulin, S. J. Edelstein, D. J. Abraham, D. Promé, C. Poyart, M.C. Marden and J. Pagnier: Chimeric _-EF3-_ Hemoglobin (_): Wenergetics of Subunit Interaction and Ligand Binding, Biochemistry, 37, 20:7328-7339, 1998.
3. Papassotiriou, J. Kister, N. Griffon, D. J. Abraham, E. Kanavakis, J. Traeger-Synodinos, A. Stamolulakatou, M.C. Marden and C. Poyart, Synthesized allosteric effectors of the hemoglobin molecule: A possible mechanism for improved erythrocyte oxygen release capability in hemoglobinopathy H disease, Experimental Hematology, 26, 922-926, 1998.
4. D. J. Abraham, J. Kister, G. S. Joshi, F. C. Wireko, M. K. Safo, M. C. Marden and C. Poyart, Structure/Function of Allosteric Effectors of Hemoglobin, Medicinal Chemistry Research, 8:7/8, 478-486, 1998.
5. S. R. Khandelwal, B. D. Kavanagh, Peck-Sun Lin, Q. T. Truong, J. Lu, D. J. Abraham, and R. K. Schmidt-Ullrich, RSR13, An Allosteric Effector of Haemoglobin, and Carbogen Radiosensitize FSAII and SCCVII Tumors in C3H Mice, British Journal of Cancer, 79(5/6) 814-820, 1999.
6. . G.E. Kellogg and D.J. Abraham, Development of empirical molecular interaction models that incorporate hydrophobicity and hydropathy, The HINT Paradigm, Analusis, 27, No. 1, 1999.
7. F. N. Musayev, M. K.Safo, M. L. DiSalvo, V.Schirch, and D. J. Abraham, Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Crystallographic Analysis of Pyridoxine 5'-Phosphate Oxidase Complexed with Flavin Mononucleotide, Journal of Structural Biology, 127, 88-91,1999.
8. J. N. Burnett, G. E. Kellogg, and D. J. Abraham, Computational Methodology for Estimating Changes in Free Energies of Biomolecular Association upon Mutation. The Importance of Bound Water in Dimer-Tetramer Assembly for b37 Mutant Hemoglobins, Biochemistry, 39, No. 7, 1622-1633, 2000.