Our Science – Zhao Website

Xue Zhi Zhao, Ph.D.

Chemical Biology Laboratory Bioorganic Chemistry Section Staff Scientist Center for Cancer Research National Cancer Institute Bldg. 376, Rm. 217 P.O. Box B Frederick, MD 21702-1201 Phone:   301-846-5907 Fax:   301-846-6033 E-Mail:   zhaoxue@mail.nih.gov

Biography

Dr. Zhao received Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from Lanzhou University, China under the direction of Professor Yongqiang Tu. In 2005, he joined Dr. Terrence Burke's laboratory as visiting fellow and was appointed as staff scientist in 2010. His efforts have been focused on developing HIV-1 integrase inhibitors as potential anti-AIDS agents.

Research

Through an extensive synthetic effort, I first examined 2,3-dihdroxybenzoylhydrazides and amides as a new classes of DKA mimetics. Then utilized methylene and oxomethylene bridges to form bicyclic variants of these 2,3-dihdroxybenzoylhydrazides and amides in which key metal-chelating heteroatoms are conformationally-constrained to coplanarity. These efforts have resulted in the discovery of structurally simple phthalimides that exhibit potent integrase inhibition at low nanomolar concentrations and display good antiviral potencies in HIV-1 infected cells.

This page was last updated on 3/5/2013.