Arnold Group at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee-Home Page
We are an academic research laboratory in field of chemical biology working in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery at the University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee.

Our research is focused on two primary targets: 1) the vitamin D receptor and 2) the GABA (A) receptors.

Our approach is to develop small molecules that can function as molecular probes in complex biological systems and new drug candidates for diseases mediated by the two primary targets mentioned above.

We are combining many areas of science including medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, (bio)analytical chemistry, high throughput screening, assay development, virtual screening, molecular docking and pharmacological profiling.

PI: Prof. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold

 

News

March 5th 2024: Michelle Meyer has been awarded the Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship awards for 2024-25.

March 5th 2024: Kayode Medubi has been awarded the Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship awards for 2024-25.

March 4th 2024: Amy Reyes been featured in the L&S in focus news about her research related to triple-negative breast cancer.

Feburary 24th 2024: Michelle Meyer will present at the AAAAI meeting in Washington DC. The title of her poster is: Development of A Novel Oral Treatment for Atopic Dermatitis.

February 26th 2024: Kayode Medubi will present at the Pittcon Conference in San Diego. The title of his poster is: Derivatization and Optimization of a LCMS-MS method to quantify selective estrogen receptor β agonists to determine their metabolic stability, protein binding, and pharmacokinetics.

February 2nd 2024: Molly Drosen has been featured in the L&S in focus news about her research related to chronic fatigue syndrome.

January 24th 2024: We are happy to announce that Michael Owen has joined the Arnold Group.

January 4th 2024: Our collaborative work with Prof Witkin authored by Dishary Sharmin, Branka Divović, Xingjie Ping, Rok Cerne, Jodi L Smith, Sepideh Rezvanian, Prithu Mondal, Michelle Jean Meyer, Molly E Kiley, Leggy A Arnold, Md Yeunus Mian, Kamal P Pandey, Xiaoming Jin, Jelena R Mitrović, Djordje Djorović, Arnold Lippa, James M Cook, Lalit K Golani, Petra Scholze, Miroslav M Savić, Jeffrey M Witkin titled "New Imidazodiazepine Analogue, 5-(8-Bromo-6-(pyridin-2-yl)-4H-benzo[f]imidazo[1,5-a][1,4]diazepin-3-yl)oxazole, Provides a Simplified Synthetic Scheme, High Oral Plasma and Brain Exposures, and Produces Antiseizure Efficacy in Mice, and Antiepileptogenic Activity in Neural Networks in Brain Slices from a Patient with Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy" has been pubshied in ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

January 3rd 2024: Grace Wheeler recieved the prestigious UWM SURF award.

December 19th 2023: Congratulation to Kayode Medubi to receive the Younger Chemists Conference Travel Grant from the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry.

December 17th 2023: Congratulations to Taif Al-Dulami and Mason West from completing their Bachelor of Science.

December 13th 2023: We are happy to annouce that Maya Fernando and Mubaraq Toriola have joined the Arnold Group.

December 7th 2023: Maija Lee recieved her MS degree in chemistry. Congratulations!

December 6th 2023: Dr. Arnold presented at the Health Science Entrepreneurship Grand Rounds "Industry and Academic Entrepreneurship - Similarities and Differences.

December 4th 2023: Daniel Webb recieved his PhD degree. Congratulations Dr. Webb.

November 15th 2023. Dr. Arnold was recognized as UWM International Advocate.

November 3rd 2023: Dr. Arnold presented at the UW System Chemistry Faculties meeting "The Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery (MIDD)"

October 20th 2023: Dr. Arnold presented at the University of Kentucky, Chemistry Department "Targeting GABAA Receptors Outside the Brain with Small Molecules"

September 26th 2023: Our collaborative work with Prof. Mirza authored by Vilashini Rajaratnam, Mohammad Mohiminul Islam, Ethan F. Kub, Shaarwin Rajaratnam, Kyu Bum Kim, Md Toufiqur Rahman, Farjana Rashid, Anna M. Benko, James M. Cook, Leggy A. Arnold, Shama P. Mirza titled "Development and validation of an LC–MS/MS method for the determination of ARN14988, an acid ceramidase inhibitor, and its application to a pharmacokinetic study in a mouse model" was published in Biomedical Chromatoraphy.

September 7th 2023: Our group participated at the Milwaukee Analytical Chemistry Conference 2023 and presented the following posters: Ethan T. Kowalczyk, “Synthesis, Solubility, and Permeability of Novel Imidazodiazepines Supporting the Development of new Treatments for Inflammatory Bowel Disease”, Kayode M. Medubi “Derivatization and Optimization of a LCMS-MS method to quantify selective estrogen receptor β agonists to determine their pharmacokinetics”, Maija Lee “Applications of Palladium Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions Using a Novel Class of Palladium Complexes”, Michelle J. Meyer “Characterization of microencapsulated PI301”, Taif Al-Dulaimi “Pre-clinical evaluation of new drug candidates for asthma and atopic dermatitis” (Best undergraduate poster award), Kali A. Quade, “Using Examining Cytotoxicity Assays and Motor Sensory Skill Study to Evaluate Asthma Drug Candidates”

September 1st 2023: Taif Al-Dulaimi and Amy Reyes recieved the prestigious UWM SURF award.

August 20th 2023: Graduate student Ethan Kowalczky was awarded the Shaw Doctoral Fellowship. The Shaw Fellowship is for select doctoral students in a Shaw Scientist discipline – molecular biology, neurobiology, biochemistry or other similar discipline with a focus on medical and healthcare-related research. It is awarded to students as identified by the awarding unit according to the donor’s criteria.

August 2nd 2023: Graduate Student Daniel Webb was selected as MIDD Research Assistant for Fall 2023.

July 17th 2023: Our collaborative grant with Prof. Peng as PI titled "The In vivo Efficacy of Novel Combination Therapy for Cancer Using ROS-Activated Prodrugs and Prooxidants" has been awarded by the UWMRF.

July 14th 2023: Our work with Daniel Webb as first author titled "Improved 2-Pyridyl Reductive Homocoupling Reaction Using Biorenewable Solvent CyreneTM (dihydrolevoglucosenone)" was accepted in the RSC Sustainability.

June 21st 2023: Our work with Daniel Webb as first author titled "Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Spiro Imidazobenzodiazepines to Identify Improved Inhaled Bronchodilators" was accepted in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

June 1st 2023: Dr. Arnold recieved the UWMRF startup award and UWMRF patent award.

May 2nd 2023: Rebecca Dominguez defended her Master Thesis titled: Hydrogel and soluble polymers to support metal ion chemosensors". Congratulation Becky!

May 2nd 2023: Prof. Arnold was nominated for the annual Research Mentor of the Year the the Office of Undergraduate Research.

April 28th 2023: Our group participated at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2023 and presented the following posters: Molly Kiley presented “Determining Drug Candidate Potency via a Cytotoxicity Assay with HEK293T Cells”, Ahmad Masoud presented “Novel Synthetic Routes for Generating Chiral and Achiral Disubstituted Imidazodiazepines to be Potentially Applied as an Oral and Inhaled Treatment for Asthma”, Dina Karim presented "Synthesis and Cell Viability Testing of Novel Imidazobenzodiazepines Structurally Related to MIDD0301", Sarah Swartwout presented "Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Benzodiazepines for the Potential Oral Treatment of Asthma", Maija Lee presented "Synthesis of Novel GABAAR Targets for Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease", Michelle Meyer presented “A comparison of mice and dog pharmacokinetics of novel drug candidates”, Kayode Medubi presented "Derivatization and Optimization of a LCMS-MS method to quantify selective estrogen receptor β agonists to determine their metabolic stability", Daniel Webb presented "Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, and Molecular Modeling of Novel Imidazobenzodiazepines to Identify Lead Compounds for the Oral Treatment of Asthma", Ethan T. Kowalczyk presented "A large-scale synthesis of N-hydroxypropionamidine to enable the formation of oxadiazoles".

April 28th 2023: Daniel Webb was honored at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Awards day at UWM with the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research.

April 28th 2023: Ahmad Masoud was honored at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Awards day at UWM with the Outstanding Senior Chemistry Award.

April 28th 2023: Kayode Medubi presented: "Derivatization and Optimization of a LCMS-MS method to quantify selective estrogen receptor β agonists to determine their metabolic stability" at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2023 at UWM and was honored with the second best Graduate Poster Presentation Award.

April 28th 2023: Daniel Webb presented "Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, and Molecular Modeling of Novel Imidazobenzodiazepines to Identify Lead Compounds for the Oral Treatment of Asthma" at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2023 at UWM and was honored with the best Graduate Poster Presentation Award.

April 28th 2023: Sarah Swartwout presented "Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Benzodiazepines for the Potential Oral Treatment of Asthma" at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2023 at UWM and was honored with the best Undergraduate Poster Presentation Award.

April 20th 2023: Taif Al-Dulaimi and Kali Quade recieved the prestigious UWM SURF summer award.

April 14th 2023: Daniel Webb presented at the Herbert C. Brown Lectures in Organic Chemistry 2023 "Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, and Molecular Modeling of Novel Imidazobenzodiazepines to Identify Lead Compounds for the Oral Treatment of Asthma" and was honored with the award for best poster presentation.

April 7th 2023. Sarah Swartwoud is presenting “Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Imidazodiazepines for the Potential Oral Treatment of Asthma” at the Biological Sciences Research Symposium.

April 7th 2023. Our patent in collaboration with Pantherics titled "Methods and compounds for treating inflammation" WO2023059443 was published.

March 28th 2023: Our US patent authored by Arnold, Alexander, E., Stafford, Douglas, C., Cook, James, M., Emala, Charles, W., Forkuo, Gloria, Jahan, Rajwana, Kodali, Revathi, Li, Guanguan, Stephen, Michael, Rajesh titled "Gaba(A) receptor modulators and methods to control airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in asthma” US20230103216 was published.

March 28th 2023: Daniel Webb is presenting at the ACS Spring 2023 Conference: 1. Division of Computers in Chemistry: "Synthesis, biological evaluation, and molecular modeling of novel imidazobenzodiazepines to identify lead compounds for the oral treatment of asthma" Poster Board #835 and "Cyrene based solvents as a green alternative to improve the efficiency of a reductive homocoupling reaction with substituted pyridines" Poster Board #330.

March 2nd 2023: Our application titled "Medical countermeasures to chemical inhalation based on GABAA receptor targeting" for the UWM Finish Line Award was granted.

February 22nd 2023: Our collaborative work with Prof. Witkin authored by Kamal P Pandey, Branka Divović, Farjana Rashid, Lalit K Golani, Nicolas M Zahn, Michelle J Meyer, Alexander Leggy Arnold, Dishary Sharmin, Md Yeunus Mian, Jodi L Smith, Xingjie Ping, Xiaoming Jin, Arnold Lippa, VVN Phani Babu Tiruveedhula, James M Cook, Miroslav Savic, Jeffrey M Witkin titled "Structural analogs of the GABAkine (5-(8-ethynyl-6-(pyridin-2-yl)-4H-benzo[f]imidazole[1,5-α][1,4]diazepin-3-yl) oxazole) (KRM-II-81) are orally bioavailable anticonvulsants without sedation" was published in The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

February 17th 2023: Our group participated at the MIDD symposium 2023 the presented the following posters: Daniel Webb, “Docking and Computational Studies of Novel Disubstituted Imidazobenzodiazepines”. Daniel also presented a oral talk with the same title. . Michelle Meyer presented “A comparison of mice and dog pharmacokinetics of novel drug candidates” and Molly Kiley presented “Determining Drug Candidate Potency via a Cytotoxicity Assay with HEK293T Cells”. Ahmad Masoud presented “Novel Synthetic Routes for Generating Chiral and Achiral Disubstituted Imidazodiazepines to be Potentially Applied as an Oral and Inhaled Treatment for Asthma” and Kayode Medubi presented “Optimization of a LCMS-MS method to quantify DAW-III-Series and determination of its metabolic stability”.

February 8th 2023: Our application titled “Support for purchase of a one-year license for Molecular Operating Environment software” for the UWM Research Assistance Fund was awarded.

January 19th 2023: Prof Arnold organized and presented at the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery MIDD symposium 2023.

January 19th 2023. Maija Lee is the lead investigator of our collaborative project with MilliporeSigma investigating new application for thier new series of MPhos Ligands for the Spring semester 2023. This project is further supported by Dr. Colacot and Xu.

January 19th 2023. Our collaborative work with Prof. Witkin authored by Xingjie Ping, Michelle J. Meyer, Nicolas M. Zahn, Lalit K. Golani, Dishary Sharmin, Kamal P. Pandey, Sepideh Revanian, Prithu Mondal, Xiaoming Jin, Leggy A. Arnold, Rok Cerne, James M. Cook, Branka Divović, Miroslav M. Savić, Arnold Lippa, Jodi L. Smith, Jeffrey M. Witkin titled “Comparative anticonvulsant activity of the GABAkine KRM-II-81 and a deuterated analog” was published in Drug Development Research.

January 18th 2023. Undergraduate students Hannah Dunst and Taif Al-Dulaimi joined the Arnold Group.

December 19th 2022: Graduate student Ethan Kowalczyk has joined the Arnold Group.

December 19th 2022: Our PCT patent application authored by Arnold, Alexander E., Stafford, Douglas C., Cook, James M., Nieman, Amanda N., Poe, Michael Ming-Jin, Li, Guanguan titled "Use of substituted 5-(4-methyl-6-phenyl-4h-benzo[f]imidazo[1,5-a][1,4] diazepin-3-yl)-1,2,4-oxadiazoles in the treatment of inflammatory conditions”,PCT/US2021/036215 was published.

August 31st 2022: Sarah Swartwout, Molly Kiley and Ahmad Masoud recieved the Fall SURF2022 award.

August 29th 2022: Daniel Webb and Kayode Medubi presented their poster at the Milwaukee Analytical Chemistry Conference (MACC).

August 29th 2022: Dr. Arnold presented at the Milwaukee Analytical Chemistry Conference (MACC).

August 26th 2022: Dr. Arnold presented at the 6th Milwaukee Symposium on Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging.

August 21st 2022: Graduate student Daniel Webb presented this work titled "Synthesis and evaluation of disubstituted imidazodiazepines using a novel synthetic strategy to generate compounds with potential application as an orally available asthma medication" at the ACS Fall 2022 conference in Chicago.

August 3rd 2022: Pantherics was awarded a SBIR grant from National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. The research will be conducted at UWM in collaboration with the Arnold Group. The grant is titled: Development of microencapsulated PI301 targeting lung GABAergic signaling.

July 1st 2022: Our collaborated work directed by Gene Yocum titled "Imidazobenzodiazepine PI320 Relaxes Mouse Peripheral Airways by Inhibiting Calcium Mobilization" authored by Jose F. Perez-Zoghbi , Dannah Rae Sajorda , Daniel A Webb , Leggy A Arnold , Charles W. Emala , and Gene T Yocum was published in American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

June 29th 2022: The UWM Research Foundation awarded the Arnold Group with catalyst grant for the identification of GABAA receptor modulators that reduce TSLP production by keratinocytes.

June 9th 2022: Our collaborated work directed by Nikki Johnston titled "Oral and Inhaled Fosamprenavir Reverses Pepsin-Induced Damaged in a Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Mouse Model" authored by Nikki Johnston, Tina L. Samuel, Christopher J. Goetz, Leggy A. Arnold, Brian C. Smith, Donna Seabloom, Beverly Wuertz, Frank Ondrey, Timothy S. Wiedmann, Nemanja Vuksanovic, Nicholas R. Silvaggi, Alexander C. MacKinnon, James Miller, Jonathan Bock, Joel H. Blumin was published in The Laryngoscope.

June 2nd 2022, The UWM Research Foundation awarded Dr. Arnold the patent award 2022.

May 6th 2022: Taylor Wilcox was selected for the 2022-23 Senior Excellence in Research Award.

May 5th 2022: Taylor Wilcox and Molly Kiley recieved the Summer SURF2022 award.

April 29th 2022: Maija Lee received the Teaching Assistant Award for Chemistry Laboratories.

April 29th 2022: Our group participated at the UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium and presented the following posters: Sarah Swartwout "Optimization of a Novel Synthetic Route to Generate New MIDD0301 Analogs" and Taylor Wilcox "Development of new treatments for neuropathic pain based on imidazodiazepines.

April 26th 2022: Prof. Arnold was nomitated as Research Mentor of the Year by the UWM Office of Undergraduate Research.

April 25th 2022: PhD thesis defense from Nicolas Zahn. The title is: Development of New Treatments for Asthma and Neuropathic Pain Based on α-Aminobutyric Acid A Receptor (GABAAR) Ligands. Congratulation Dr. Zahn!

April 22th 2022: Our group participated at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium and presented the following posters: Daniel Webb, "Synthesis and Evaluation of Disubstituted Imidazodiazepines Using a Novel Synthetic Strategy to Generate Compounds with Potential Application as an Orally Available Asthma Medication". He was awarded for best graduate student poster. Michelle Meyer presented "Determination of Lung TSLP Levels in OVA s/c Mice Treated Orally with GABAA receptor modulator MIDD0301" and Molly Kiley presented "Determining Drug Candidate Potency via a Cytotoxicity Assay with HEK293T Cells". Anika Tylek presented "Assessment of new drug candidates with respect to cytotoxicity and sensorimotor inhibition" and was awarded for best undergraduate student poster. Sarah Swartwout presented "Optimization of a Novel Synthetic Route to Generate New MIDD0301 Analogs" and was awarded for second best undergraduate student poster.

April 11th 2022: Our collaborated work directed by Rakesh Singh titled “Identification of a Vitamin-D Receptor Antagonist, MeTC7, which Inhibits the Growth of Xenograft and Transgenic Tumors In Vivo" authored by Negar Khazan, Kyu Kwang Kim, Jeanne N. Hansen, Niloy A. Singh, Taylor Moore, Cameron W. A. Snyder, Ravina Pandita, Myla Strawderman, Michiko Fujihara, Yuta Takamura, Ye Jian, Nicholas Battaglia, Naohiro Yano, Yuki Teramoto, Leggy A. Arnold, Russell Hopson, Keshav Kishor, Sneha Nayak, Debasmita Ojha, Ashoke Sharon, John M. Ashton, Jian Wang, Michael T. Milano, Hiroshi Miyamoto, David C. Linehan, Scott A. Gerber, Nada Kawar, Ajay P. Singh, Erdem D. Tabdanov, Nikolay V. Dokholyan, Hiroki Kakuta, Peter W. Jurutka, Nina F. Schor, Rachael B. Rowswell-Turner, Rakesh K. Singh, and Richard G. Moore was accepted in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

February 28th 2022: Daniel Webb was awarded the UWM Distingushed Dissertation Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year. Congratulations!

February 28th 2022: Our collaborated work directed by Jeff Witkin titled “Metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and anticonvulsant activity of a deuterated analog of the α2/3-selective GABAkine KRM-II-81” authored by Lalit K Golani, Branka Divović, Dishary Sharmin, Kamal P Pandey, Md Yeunus Mian, Rok Cerne, Nicolas M Zahn, Michelle J Meyer, Veera V N P B Tiruveedhula, Jodi L Smith, Xingjie Ping, Xiaoming Jin, Arnold Lippa, Jeffrey M Schkeryantz, Leggy A Arnold, James M Cook, Miroslav M Savić and Jeffrey M Witkin was accepted in Biopharmaceutics and Drug Disposition.

February 2nd 2022: Our manuscript titled "Comparative pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic study of MIDD0301 and its (S) enantiomer" authored by M.S. Rashid Roni, Nicolas M. Zahn, Gene T. Yocum, Daniel A. Webb, Md Yeunus Mian, Michelle J. Meyer, Anika S. Tylek, James M. Cook, Charles W. Emala, Douglas C. Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Drug Development Research.

January 28th 2022: Our collaborated work directed by Mahmun Hossain (UWM) titled "Development of a novel, small-molecule brain-penetrant histone deacetylase inhibitor that enhances spatial memory formation in mice" authored by Jawad Bin Belayet, Sarah Beamish, MD Mizzanoor Rahaman, Samer Alanani, Rajdeep Virdi, David Frick, A.F.M. Towheedur Rahman, Joseph Ulicki, Sreya Biswas, Leggy A. Arnold, M.S. Rashid Roni, Eric Cheng, Douglas Steeber, Karyn Frick and M. Mahmun Hossain was accepted by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

January 19th 2022: Our manuscript titled "Development of inhaled GABA(A) receptor modulators to improve airway function in bronchoconstrictive disorders" authored by Nicolas M. Zahn, M.S. Rashid Roni, Gene T. Yocum, Michelle J. Meyer, Daniel A. Webb, Md Yeunus Mian, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford, Charles W. Emala, and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by ACS Pharmacology& Translational Science.

January 10th 2022: Daniel Webb was nominated for the Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

January 7th 2022: Michelle Meyer was elected as MIDD research assistant for the 2022 spring semester.

December 6th 2021: Our manuscript titled "Identification and Quantification of MIDD0301 metabolites" authored by M.S. Rashid Roni, Nicolas M. Zahn, Brandon N. Mikulsky, Daniel A. Webb, Md Yeunus Mian, Daniel E. Knutson, Margaret L. Guthrie, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford, Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Current Drug Metabolism.

December 17th 2021: Anika Tylek, Julia Vogt, and Sarah Swartwout recieved the Spring SURF2022 award.

December 6th 2021: Our manuscript titled "Identification and Quantification of MIDD0301 metabolites" authored by M.S. Rashid Roni, Nicolas M. Zahn, Brandon N. Mikulsky, Daniel A. Webb, Md Yeunus Mian, Daniel E. Knutson, Margaret L. Guthrie, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford, Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Current Drug Metabolism.

December 1st 2021: PhD thesis defense from Md S. Rashid Roni. The title is: Mass spectrometry directed pre-clinical studies of asthma candidate MIDD0301 and its analogs . Congratulation Dr. Roni!

October 27th 2021: Taylor Wilcox and Daniel Webb participated in the ACS Milwaukee Section meeting. For her presentation "Development of new treatments for neuropathic pain based on imidazodiazepines" she was awarded second place. Daniel was awarded the first place with his presentation: "Development of a novel synthetic strategy that enables the generation of disubstituted imidazodiazepines with potential application as orally available asthma medication."

September 29th 2021: Our book chapter titled "Strategies for the Design of Vitamin D Receptor Ligands" authored by Tania R. Mutchie, Daniel A. WebbElliot S. Di Milo, Leggy A. Arnold was published by Springer.

September 9th 2021: Taylor Wilcox recieved the Fall SURF2021 award.

August 25th 2021: Our manuscript titled "Biological evaluation and synthesis of calcitroic acid" authored by Olivia B.Yu, Daniel A.Webb, Elliot S.Di Milo, Tania R.Mutchie, Kelly A.Teske, TaoshengChen, Wenwei Lin, Carole Peluso-Iltis, Natacha Rochel, Moritz Helmstädter, Daniel Merk, Leggy A.Arnold was accepted by Bioorganic Chemistry.

June 9th 2021: Michelle Meyer is presenting her poster titled "Cell Viability, Motor Performance, and Behavioral Assessments of New Drug Candidates" at the UW System SPARK Symposium between 3:00 - 5:00 pm.

June 1st 2021: Dr. Arnold accepted the position as Director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery.

May 20th 2021: Taylor Wilcox recieved the Summer SURF2021 award.

May 6th 2021: PhD thesis defense from Tania Mutchie. The title is: Part I: Development of Small-Molecule-Based Probes for the Vitamin D Receptor; Part II: Development of a Scalable Manufacturing Process for Orcein Dye. Congratulation Dr. Mutchie!

May 3rd 2021: PhD thesis defense from Elliot DiMilo. The title is: Determination of the Metabolism, Distribution, and Concentration of Calcitroic Acid. Congratulation Dr. Di Milo!

April 23th 2021: M.S. Rashid Roni received the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research 2021.

April 23th 2021: Our group participated at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium at UWM the presented the following posters: MS Rahid Roni, “Metabolism and drug disposition of clinical asthma compound MIDD0301 in mice"; Daniel Webb, "Synthesis of MIDD0301 Phase II Metabolites and Application of Amino Acid N-Carboxy Anhydrides to Generate New MIDD0301 Analogs”; Nicolas Zahn, “Nebulized MIDD0301 Reduces Airway Hyperresponsiveness and Bronchoconstriction in Murine Models”; Taylor Wilcox, “Development of new treatments for neuropathic pain based on imidazodiazepines”; Michelle Meyer, “Cell Viability, Motor Performance, and Behavioral Assessments of New Drug Candidates”.

April 19th 2021: ACS Spring 2021. Please check out the presentations from Nick Zahn "Development of New Treatments for Asthma and Neuropathic Pain" and MS Rashid Roni "Metabolic excretion profile of clinical asthma compound MIDD0301".

April 16th 2021: Taylor Wilcox received the Outstanding Presentation Award for her contribution at the UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium.

April 12th 2021: Taylor Wilcox presented her presentation titled "Development of New Treatments for Neuropathic Pain Based on Imidazodiazepines" at the NCUR 2021 conference.

March 10th 2021: Dr. Arnold was awarded the UWM Start-up Award.

March 7th 2021: Our collaborated work directed by Xiaohua Peng (UWM) titled: "Assessment of Phenylboronic Acid Nitrogen Mustards as Potent and Selective Drug Candidates for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer" authored by Heli Fan, Muhammad Asad Uz Zaman, Wenbing Chen, Taufeeque Ali, Anahit Campbell, Qi Zhang, Nurul Islam Setu, Eron Saxon, Nicolas M. Zahn, Anna M. Benko, Leggy A. Arnold, and Xiaohua Peng has been published by ACS Pharmacology& Translational Science.

March 5rd 2021: MS Rashid Roni is presenting his poster at the spring ACS Fall 2021 virtual Meeting & Expo (MEDI) titled "Metabolic excretion profile of clinical asthma compound MIDD0301".

March 5rd 2021: Nicolas Zahn is presenting his poster at the spring ACS Fall 2021 virtual Meeting & Expo (MEDI) titled "Targeting Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Type A Receptors for the Treatment of Asthma and Neuropathic Pain".

Febuary 28th 2021: Nicolas Zahn was awarded the UWM Distinguished Dissertator Fellowship and will be support during the Fall and Spring semester of 21/22. Congratulations Nick!

February 26th 2021: Dr. Arnold is presenting at the 2021 AAAAI Virtual Annual Meeting. The titel of his presentation is: "Nebulized MIDD0301 is Efficacious in Allergic and Microbial Lung Inflammation Models".

November 20th 2020: Our manuscript titled "Nebulized MIDD0301 Reduces Airway Hyperresponsiveness in Moderate and Severe Murine Asthma Models" authored by Nicolas M. Zahn, Brandon N. Mikulsky, M. S. Rashid Roni, Gene T. Yocum, Md Yeunus Mian, Daniel E. Knutson, James M. Cook, Charles W. Emala, Douglas C. Stafford, and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted byACS Pharmacology & Translational Science.

November 17th 2020: Brittany MacPherson joined the Arnold Group. Welcome Brittany!

November 11th 2020: Our collaborated work directed by James Cook (UWM) titled: "Design, synthesis and characterization of novel gamma aminobutyric acid type A receptor ligands" authored by Kamal P. Pandey, Md Zubair Ahmed Khan, Lalit K. Golani, Prithu Mondal, Md Yeunus Mian, Farjana Rashid, V. V. N. Phani Babu Tiruveedhula, Daniel E. Knutson, Nicolas M. Zahn, Leggy A. Arnold, Jeffrey M. Witkin and James M. Cook has been accepted by Arkivoc.

October 15th 2020: Michelle Jan Meyer joined the Arnold Group. Welcome Michelle!

August 28th 2020: Taylor Wilcox recieved the Fall SURF2020 award.

August 23th 2020: Our manuscript titled "A Structure-Activity Relationship Comparison of Imidazodiazepines Binding at Kappa, Mu, and delta Opioid Receptors and the GABAA Receptor" authored by Guanguan Li, Amanda N. Nieman, Md Yeunus Mian, Nicolas M. Zahn, Brandon N. Mikulsky, Michael M. Poe, Kashi R. Methuku, Yongfeng Liu, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Molecules.

August 17th 2020: MS Rashid Roni is presenting his poster at ACS Fall 2020 virtual Meeting & Expo titled "MEDI 195: Characterization of clearance and metabolism of asthma candidate MIDD0301 by mass spectrometry".

August 17th 2020: Tania Mutchie is presenting her poster at ACS Fall 2020 virtual Meeting & Expo titled"MEDI 105: Development of small-molecule-based probes for the vitamin D receptor".

July 31th 2020: Our mauscript titled "Improved scale-up synthesis and purification of clinical asthma candidate MIDD0301" authored by Daniel E. Knutson, M. S. Rashid Roni, Md Yeunus Mian, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford, and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Organic Process Research & Development.

June 9th 2020: Our manuscript titled "Targeting nitric oxide production in microglia with novel imidazodiazepines for non-sedative pain treatment" authored by Amanda N. Nieman, Guanguan Li, Nicolas M. Zahn, Md Yeunus Mian, Brandon N. Mikulsky, Dylan A. Hoffman, Taylor M. Wilcox, Alexander S. Kehoe, Ian W. Luecke, Michael M. Poe, David Alvarez-Carbonell, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

May 22nd 2020: Tania Mutchie and Elliot Di Milo were awarded MilliporeSigma Research Fellowships for this summer working with teams from Milwaukee and Sheboygan.

May 22nd 2020: Dylan Hoffman and Taylor Wilcox recieved the Summer SURF2020 award.

May 15th 2020: Tania Mutchie and Md Rashid Roni were awarded the Graduate Student Excellence Fellowship (GSEF) Award.

April 23th 2020: Tania Mutchie received the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research 2020.

April 6th 2020: Dr. Arnold will give a talk at Western Michigan State University, Department of Chemistry in Kalamazoo titled: "Investigation of Clinical Oral Drug Candidate MIDD0301 for Severe Asthma and COPD".

March 16th 2020: Dr. Arnold will give a talk at the AAAAI annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA titled: Investigation of Drug Candidate MIDD0301 as an Oral Controller and Companion Inhaler Medication for Severe Asthma and COPD".

March 4th 2020: Our asthma work was mentioned in the UWM Research Magazine.

February 20th 2020: Our manuscript titled "The effects of pH on the structure and bioavailability of imidazobenzodiazepine-3-carboxylate MIDD0301" authored by M.S. Rashid Roni, Guanguan Li, Brandon N. Mikulsky, Daniel E. Knutson, Md Yeunus Mian, Nicolas M. Zahn, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted in Molecular Pharmaceutics.

January 16th 2020: Dylan Hoffman and Taylor Wilcox will present their posters titled "Determination of Cellular Cytotoxicity of Novel Benzodiazepines Using Human Liver and Kidney Cells" and "Development of New Treatments for Neuropathic Pain Based on Imidazodiazepines" at the NCUR 2020 conference at Montana State University (March 26-28th).

January 10th 2020: Dylan Hoffman and Taylor Wilcox recieved the Spring SURF2020 award.

December 15th 2019: Tania Mutchie will present her poster titled "Development of small-molecule-based probes for the vitamin D receptor" at the ACS National Meeting & Expo in Philadelphia during the March 22-26, 2020.

November 27th 2019: M.S. Rashid Roni received the Eurofins Award in Analytical Chemistry. Congratulations!

November 14th 2019: Amanda Nieman defending her thesis titled: Targeting the y-aminobutyric acid A receptor to alleviate inflammation for asthma and neuropathic pain. Congratulation Dr. Nieman!

November 1st 2019: Our manuscript titled: "Synthesis and biological evaluation of calcioic acid" authored by Olivia B. Yu, Tania R. Mutchie, Elliot S. Di Milo and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted in Steroids.

October 2nd 2019: Our collaborative R43 application with Neurocyle Therapeutics Inc. titled "Development of a fixed-dose combination therapy for the treatment of arthritic pain" has been selected for funding.

September 11th 2019: Dylan Hoffman and Noorjot Kaur recieved the Fall SURF2019 award.

September 9th 2019: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Dockendorff (Marquette University) titled: "An anthrone-based Kv7.2/7.3 channel blocker with improved properties for the investigation of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders" authored by Jacob D. Porter, Oscar L. Vivas-Rodriguez, C. David Weaver, Eamonn J. Dickson, Abdulmohsen Alsafrana, Elliot DiMilo, Leggy A. Arnold and Chris Dockendorff has been accepted by Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters.

August 20th 2019: Dr. Arnold presented at the 5th Biennial Symposium on Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging “Development of a new therapy for asthma that specifically targets GABA(A) receptors in the lung”.

August 14th 2019: Our group participated at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at UWM: Nicholas T. Martinez “The Effect on Bodyweight and on the Behavior a Maximum Tolerated Single Dose (MTD) of Test Article 01 (TA01) by Oral Gavage in the Sprague Dawley Rat”, Dylan Hoffman “Evaluation of Genotoxicity of Clinical Asthma Drug Candidate MIDD0301” and Alex Kehoe “Preclinical Screening of Drug Candidates using a Rotarod Assay”.

July 18th 2019: Our Asthma work made the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

June 27 2019: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Dockendorff (Marquette University) titled: "The Parmodulin NRD-21 is an Allosteric Inhibitor of PAR1 Gq Signaling with Improved Anti-Inflammatory Activity and Stability" authored by Disha M. Gandhi, Ricardo Rosas, Jr., Eric Greve, Kaitlin M. Kentala, N'Guessan D.-R. Diby, Vladyslava A. Snyder, Allison Stephans, Teresa H. Y. Yeung, Saravanan Subramaniam, Khia E. Kurtenbach, Elliot DiMilo, Leggy A. Arnold, Hartmut Weiler and Chris Dockendorff has been accepted by Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry

May 8th 2019: Our STTR grant from the NIH made local news. (Milwaukee Business Journal)

May 7th 2019: Our NIH awarded STTR grant made national news. (BioSpace)

April 26th 2019: Tania Mutchie was awarded with the teaching assistant award 2019. Congratulation Tania!

April 26th 2019: Dylan Hoffman was awarded with 3rd best undergraduate poster award 2019. Congratulation Dylan!

April 26th 2019: Elliot De Milo was awarded with 3rd best graduate poster award 2019. Congratulation Elliot!

April 26th 2019: Brandon Milkulsky participated in the 18th Annual UW System Symposium for Undergraduate Research presenting his poster "Finding a New Treatment for Neuropathic Pain: Targeting the GABA(A) Receptor on Microglia".

April 26th 2019: Our group participated at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium at UWM the presented the following posters: Amanda N. Nieman, “Targeting Microglia with Novel Benzodiazepines for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain”; Tania Mutchie “Synthesis of Novel Compounds to Study Expression and Localization of the Vitamin D Receptor”; Md S Rashid Roni, “Development of a protein binding assay for drug discovery”; Elliot DiMilo “Metabolic Stability and Optimization of Extraction of Calcitroic Acid to Enable its Quantification by Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry”; Nicolas Zahn ” Characterization of a Novel Orally Available Subtype-Selective GABAA Receptor Agonist for the Treatment of Asthma", Olivia Yu “Investigating Calcitroic Acid, Its Phase Two Metabolites, and Their Biological Function” Daniel Webb "Towards the Synthesis of an Intrinsic Fluorescent Ligand for the Vitamin D Receptor", Dylan Hoffman "Evaluation of cellular toxicity of new drug candidates", Alexander Kehoe and Ian Luecke "Preclinical Screening of Drug Candidates using a Rotarod".

April 22nd 2019: Olivia Yu defended her thesis titeled: PART I: An investigation of calcitroic acid and its phase II conjugates PART II: Towards the developement of a novel orally available asthma treatment targeting GABAA(A) receptors in the lung. Congratulations Dr. Yu!

April 19th 2019: Drs Arnold and Stafford participated in a radio interview with CTSI discovery radio. The podcast "All about Asthma" is available to the public via Appel Padcast, Google Play, Soundcloud and Stitcher.

April 10-13th 2019: Our group participated in the 2019 NCUR conference. Brandon Milkulsky "Finding a New Treatment for Neuropathic Pain: Targeting the GABA(A) Receptor on Microglia" and Alex Huber "Imidazobenzodiazepine asthma drug reduces lung inflammation without affecting systemic immune system function."

April 5th 2019: Our internal UWM-RGI application "Pharmacological Characterization of Calcitroic Acid as an Anti-Inflammatory" has been selected for funding.

April 5th 2019: Our group participated at the 11th annual UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium at UWM. The following posters were presented: Daniel Webb "Towards the Synthesis of an Intrinsic Fluorescent Ligand for the Vitamin D Receptor", Brandon Milkulsky "Finding a New Treatment for Neuropathic Pain: Targeting the GABA(A) Receptor on Microglia", Dylan Hoffman "Evaluation of cellular toxicity of new drug candidates", Alexander Kehoe and Ian Luecke "Preclinical Screening of Drug Candidates using a Rotarod" and Alex Huber "Imidazobenzodiazepine asthma drug reduces lung inflammation without affecting systemic immune system function".

April 1st 2019: Nicolas Zahn was awarded the Distingushed Graduate Student Fellowship from the UWM Graduate School. The fellowhip will support Nick for one year.

March 13th 2019: Dr. Arnold received a patent award from the UWM Research Foundation for vitamin D receptor - coregulator inhibitors.

February 14th 2019: Our collaborative R41 application with Pantherics Inc. titled "A novel asthma drug candidate targeting the GABAergic system in lung inflammation" has been selected for funding.

February 11th 2019: Our collaborative R43 application with Neurocyle Therapeutics Inc. titled "Subtype Selective GABAA Receptor Modulators for the Treatment of Dravet syndrome" has been selected for funding.

February 7th 2019: Our neuropathic pain work got mentioned in the Milwaukee Business Journal.

January 25th 2019: Our group participated in the 1st annual Milwaukee Analytical Chemistry Conference. The following posters were presented: Amanda N. Nieman, “Targeting Microglia with Novel Benzodiazepines for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain”; Tania Mutchie “Synthesis of Novel Compounds to Study Expression and Localization of the Vitamin D Receptor”; Md S Rashid Roni, “Development of a protein binding assay for drug discovery”; Elliot DiMilo “Metabolic Stability and Optimization of Extraction of Calcitroic Acid to Enable its Quantification by Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry”; Nicolas Zahn ” Characterization of a Novel Orally Available Subtype-Selective GABAA Receptor Agonist for the Treatment of Asthma", Olivia Yu “Investigating Calcitroic Acid, Its Phase Two Metabolites, and Their Biological Function”, Brandon Milkulsky "Finding a New Treatment for Neuropathic Pain: Targeting the GABA(A) Receptor on Microglia".

January 23th 2019: Our work titled: "MIDD0301 ‒ A first-in-class anti-inflammatory asthma drug targets GABAA receptors without causing systemic immune suppression" authored by Nicolas M. Zahn, Alec T. Huber, Brandon Nicholas Mikulsky, Mae Elizabeth Stepanski, Alexander Scott Kehoe, Guanguan Li, Melissa Schussman, M. S. Rashid Roni, Revathi Kodali, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford, Douglas A. Steeber and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology.

January 14th 2019: Our work titled: "Alternative binding sites at the vitamin D receptor and their ligands" authored by Tania R. Mutchie, Olivia B. Yu, Elliot S. Di Milo, Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology.

Janary 7th 2019: Alexander Kehoe, Daniel Webb and Brandon Mikulsky received the Spring SURF2019 award.

December 12th 2018: Kelly Pauly received her MS degree after passing her MS defense. Congratulation Kelly!

December 7th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Drs. Savic and Sibille titled: "Novel Benzodiazepine-Like Ligands with Various Anxiolytic, Antidepressant, or Pro-Cognitive Profiles" authored by Thomas D. Prevot, Guanguan Li, Aleksandra Vidojevic, Keith A. Misquitta, Corey Fee, Anja Santrac, Daniel E. Knutson, Michael R. Stephen, Revathi Kodali, Nicolas M. Zahn, Leggy A. Arnold, Petra Scholze, Janet L. Fisher, Bojan D. Marković, Mounira Banasr, James M. Cook, Miroslav Savic and Etienne Sibille was accepted by the Molecular Neuropsychiatry.

December 3rd 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Dockendorff titled: "Design and evaluation of heterobivalent PAR1–PAR2 ligands as antagonists of calcium mobilization" authored by Mark W Majewski, Disha M. Gandhi, Ricardo Rosas, Revathi Kodali, Leggy A. Arnold, and Chris Dockendorff was accepted by the ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.

November 24th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Yocum titled: "A Novel GABA(A) Receptor Ligand MIDD0301 with Limited Blood-Brain Barrier Penetration Relaxes Airway Smooth Muscle Ex Vivo and In Vivo" authored by Gene Yocum, Jose Perez-Zoghbi, Jennifer Danielsson, Aisha Kuforiji, Yi Zhang, Guanguan Li, M.S. Rashid Roni, Revathi Kodali, Douglas Stafford, Leggy A. Arnold, James Cook, and Charles Emala was accepted by the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

September 24th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Peng titled: "Discovery and Optimization of Novel Hydrogen Peroxide Activated Aromatic Nitrogen Mustard Derivatives as Highly Potent Anticancer Agents" authored by Wenbing Chen, Heli Fan, Kumudha Balakrishnan, Yibin Wang, Huabing Sun, Yukai Fan, Varsha Gandhi, Leggy A. Arnold, and Xiaohua Peng was accepted by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

September 17th 2018: Our company Pantherics Incorporated has licensed our new asthma drug candidate MIDD0301 from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

September 6th 2018: Alexander Kehoe and Brandon Mikulsky received the Fall SURF2018 award.

August 15st 2018: Our group presented at the Summer Undergraduate Student Poster Symosium: The title of Brandon Mikulsky presented poster was: "Finding a new treatment for Neuropatic pain: Targeting GABA(A) Receptor in Microglia". Brandon was awarded with third Best Poster Prize. Alec Huber presented "Continuing Study of the Immunotoxicology of Asthma Drug Candidate MIDD0301" and Mae Stepanski presented "The application of non-invasive airway mechanics to determine airway hyperresponsiveness for a steroid-resistance mouse model foe asthma".

August 6th 2018: Congratulation to Elliot DeMilo and Rashid Roni for recieving the "Organic Chemistry Reseach Assistantship" for Fall 2018 sponsored by Eurofins.

May 22nd 2018: Our group participated at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium at UWM the presented the following posters: Amanda N. Nieman, “Reducing airway constriction and inflammation through GABAA receptors in the lung with a novel, orally available drug candidate”; Tania Mutchie “Synthesis of novel compounds to study expression and localization of the vitamin D receptor”; Revathi Kodali “Pharmacokinetic Studies of Drug Candidates for Neurological Disorders and Asthma Based on GABAA Receptor Subtype Selective Ligands”; Md S Rashid Roni, “Development of a protein binding assay for drug discovery”; Elliot DiMilo “Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Quantification of Calcitroic Acid in Tissue and Microsomal Stability Assays”; Nicolas Zahn ”Nervous System Effects of Metabolic Analysis of Imidazobenzodiazepines in Human and Mouse Liver Microsomes"

May 18th 2018: Dr. Arnold will give a talk at the 21st Workshop on Vitamin D in Barcelona Spain titled "Calcitroic acid and its phase II metabolites".

May 17th 2018: Olivia Yu will present her poster titled “Investigating Calcitroic Acid, Its Phase Two Metabolites, and Their Biological Function” at the 21st Vitamin D workshop in Barcelona Spain.

May 8th 2018: Amanda Nieman will present a poster and will give an oral presentation at Immunology 2018 in Austin (TX) titled:"Reducing airway constriction and inflammation through GABA(A) receptors in the lung with a novel, orally available drug candidate".

May 1st 2018: Alec Huber, Brandon Mikulsky and Mae Stepanski received the Sommer SURF2018 award.

April 27th 2018: Our group participated at the 10th annual UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium at UWM. The following posters were presented: Alec Huber "An Immunotoxicity Safety Study of MIDD0301" and Brandon Mikulsky "Finding a New Treatment for Neuropathic Pain: Targeting the GABA(A) Receptor on Microglia." Jon Gould presented orally "Identification of Novel Pepsin Inhibitors for Target Drugs to Treat Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease".

April 11th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Maurice titled Dr. Cook titled "A high-throughput screening assay for pyruvate carboxylase" authered by Brittney N. Wyatt, Leggy A. Arnold, Martin St. Maurice has been accepted by Analytical Biochemistry.

March 3rd 2018: Our manuscript titled "A Novel Orally Available Asthma Drug Candidate That Reduces Smooth Muscle Constriction and Inflammation by Targeting GABAA Receptors in the Lung" authored by Gloria S. Forkuo, Amanda N. Nieman, Revathi Kodali, Nicolas M. Zahn, Guanguan Li, M. S. Rashid Roni, Michael Rajesh Stephen, Ted W. Harris, Rajwana Jahan, Margaret L. Guthrie, Olivia B. Yu, Janet L. Fisher, Gene T. Yocum, Charles W. Emala, Douglas A. Steeber, Douglas C. Stafford, James M. Cook, and Leggy A. Arnold has been accepted by Molecular Pharmaceutics.

March 3rd 2018: Dr. Arnold will give a talk at the AAAAI/WAO Joint Congress in Orlando Florida titled: Clinical Drug Candidate MIDD0301 is a Novel Oral Asthma Treatment combating Inflammation and Muscle Constriction in the Lung".

Feburary 27th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Cook titled: "Synthesis of chiral GABAA receptor subtype selective ligands as potential agents to treat schizophrenia as well as depression" authored by Guanguan Li, Michael R. Stephen, Revathi Kodali, Nicolas M. Zahn, Michael M. Poe, V.V.N. Phani Babu Tiruveedhula, Alec T. Huber, Melissa K. Schussman, Krista Qualmann, Cristina M. Panhans, Nicholas J. Raddatz, David A. Baker, Thomas D. Prevot, Mounira Banasr, Etienne Sibille, Leggy A. Arnold, and James M. Cook was accepted by Arkivoc.

Feburary 20th 2018: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Cook titled: "Design and Synthesis of Novel Deuterated Ligands Functionally Selective for the γ-Aminobutyric Acid Type A Receptor (GABAAR) α6 Subtype with Improved Metabolic Stability and Enhanced Bioavailability" authored by Daniel E. Knutson, Revathi Kodali, Branka Divović, Marco Treven, Michael R. Stephen , Nicolas M. Zahn, Vladimir Dobričić, Alec T. Huber, Matheus A. Meirelles, Ranjit S. Verma, Laurin Wimmer, Christopher Witzigmann, Leggy A. Arnold , Lih-Chu Chiou, Margot Ernst, Marko D. Mihovilovic, Miroslav M. Savić, Werner Sieghart, and James M. Cook was accepted by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

January 8th 2018: Melissa Schussman received the Spring SURF2018 award.

January 7th 2018: Our book chapter titled "Modulating Vitamin D Receptor–Coregulator Binding With Small Molecules" authored by Olivia B. Yu, Leggy A. Arnold has been published in Vitamin D, Volume 2, Health, Disease, and Therapeutics, Fourth Ed. Chapter 90, pp. 657-664, 2018.

December 18th 2017: Our manuscript titled "Novel VDR antagonists based on the GW0742 scaffold" authored by Kelly A. Teske, Jonathan W. Bogart and Leggy A. Arnold has been accepted by Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters.

December 1st 2017: Margaret Guthrie successfully defended her PhD thesis titled "Developement of preclinial assays based on tandem mass spectrometry to investigate GABA(A) receptor moldulators". Congratulation Dr. Guthrie!

October 11th 2017: A great video from our roundtable discussion with my former PhD advisor and Chemistry Nobel Laureate Prof. Ben Feringa, Dr. Marija Gajdardziska; Dean of UWM’s Graduate School and Professor in the Department of Physics, Dr. Douglas Stafford; Director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery and Executive Director of the Shimadzu Laboratory in UWM’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Kathy Mykleby; news anchor at WISN12 was just released on youtube.

October 4th 2017: The visit by my former PhD advisor and Chemistry Nobel Laureate Prof. Ben Feringa was mentioned in the news by WISN abc news and news anchor Kathy Mykleby.

October 4th 2017: Our new asthma patent titled: Novel Gaba(A) receptor agonists and methods of using to control airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in asthma" is allowed.

September 29th 2017: Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Prof. Ben Feringa will present his Nobel Lecture "The Art of Building Small, From Molecular Switches to Motors”at UWM, Lubar Hall N140 at 3:00 pm.

September 29th 2017: Our group presented at the UW System Faculty meeting: Amanda N. Nieman, “Automated Patch Clamp to Determine the Pharmacology and GABA(A) receptor Subtype Selectivity of Imidazobenzodiazepines”, Olivia Yu ”Investigation of the Biological Function of Calcitroic Acid and Its Phase Two Metabolites”, Margaret L. Guthrie, “Localization of novel imidobenzodiazepines in asthmatic mouse lung tissue by MALDI imaging mass spectrometry”, Tania Mutchie “Synthesis of novel compounds to study expression and localization of the vitamin D receptor”, Md Shadiqur Rashid Roni “Microsomal stability determination of novel Imidazobenzodiazepines”, Revathi Kodali, “Pharmacokinetic Studies of Drug Candidates for Neurological Disorders and Asthma Based on GABAA Receptor Subtype Selective Ligands”, Gloria S. Forkuo “Novel orally bioavailable GABA(A) receptor positive allosteric modulator for alleviating multiple asthma symptoms”, Alec Huber, “An Immunotoxicity Safety Study of GL-II-93”, Elliot Di Milo “Quantification of Calcitroic Acid using Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry”.

September 15th 2017: Prof. Arnold is giving a talk titled “Development of a new therapies for asthma based on compounds that specifically target GABA(A) receptors in the lung” at the Feringa Academic Alumni Symposium at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

August 21st 2017: Our group presented at the Summer Undergraduate Student Poster Symosium: Alessandra Ebben " Calcitroic Acid as a Potential Key Element in Colon Cancer Prevention"; Jonathon Gould "Identification of Novel Pepsin Inhibitors for Target Drugs to Treat Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease"; Alec Huber "An Immunotoxicity Safety Study of GL-II-93" and Labina Petrovska "Identification of ExoU Inhibitors for the Suppression of Pseudomonas aeruginosa."

August 21st 2017: Our manuscript titled "Parallel Chemistry Approach to Identify Novel Nuclear Receptor Ligands Based on the GW0742 Scaffold" authored by Kelly A. Teske, Ganesha Rai, Premchendar Nandhikonda, Preetpal S. Sidhu, Belaynesh Feleke, Anton Simeonov, Adam Yasgar, Ajit Jadhav, David J. Maliney, and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by ACS Combinatorial Chemistry.

June 22th 2017: Our pain research got mentioned by TJM news channel 4 and NBC26.

July 3rd 2017: Our research proposal titled "Targeting Microglia in Neuropathic Pain Drug Discovery" was funded by the UWM Research Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

June 5th 2017: Our asthma research got mentioned in healthline, a consumer health information site.

May 23rd 2017: Margaret L. Guthrie received the graduate poster award for the second best presentation at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2017.

May 23rd 2017: Our group presented at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium 2017: Amanda N. Nieman, “Automated Patch Clamp for Determining the Pharmacology and GABAA Receptor Subtype Selectivity of Imidazobenzodiazepines”, Margaret L. Guthrie “Imaging the distribution of selective GABAA receptor modulators in the asthmatic lung using MALDI mass spectrometry”, Nicolas Zahn, ”Nervous System Effects & Metabolic Analysis of Benzodiazepines in Human and Mouse Liver Microsomes”, Elliot DiMilo, “Quantification of calcitroic Acid using Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry”, Md Rashid Roni, “Microsomal Stability Determination of Novel Imidazobenzodiazepines”, Revathi Kodali, “Pharmacokinetic Studies of Drug Candidates for Neurological Disorders and Asthma Based on GABAA Receptor Subtype Selective Ligands”, Alec Huber, ,”Application of rotarod studies to the investigation possible adverse side effects of imidazobenzodiazepines”, Olivia Yu, “Investigation of the Biological Function of Calcitroic Acid”, Alessandra Ebben “Calcitroic Acid as a Potential Key Element in Colon Cancer Prevention”, Viktoriia Senych, “Synthesis of Calcitroic Acid to Determine its Potential for Prevention of Colon Cancer”, Tania Mutchie, “Synthesis of Novel Compounds to Study Expression and Localization of the Vitamin D Receptor”, Ted Harris, “A murine asthma model to determine the attenuation of airway hyper-responsiveness of novel imidazobenzodiazepines”.

May 22rd 2017: Our asthma research got mentioned in the local news on TMJ4 news.

April 28th 2017: Alessandra Ebben will present at the 9th annual UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium at UWM. The title of her poster is: "Synthesis of Calcitroic Acid to Determine its Potential for Prevention of Colon Cancer."

April 28th 2017: Victoriia Senych will present at the 9th annual UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium at UWM. The title of her poster is: "Calcitroic Acid as a Potential Key Element in Colon Cancer Prevention."

April 25th 2017: Our manuscript titled "Alleviation of Multiple Asthmatic Pathologic Features with Orally Available and Subtype Selective GABAA Receptor Modulator" authored by Gloria S. Forkuo, Amanda N. Nieman, Nina Y. Yuan, Revathi Kodali, Olivia B. Yu, Nicolas M. Zahn, Rajwana Jahan, Guanguan Li, Michael Rajesh Stephen, Margaret L. Guthrie, Michael M. Poe, Benjamin D. Hartzler, Ted W. Harris, Gene T. Yocum, Charles W. Emala, Douglas A. Steeber, Douglas C. Stafford, James M. Cook and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by Molecular Pharmaceutics.

April 21th 2017: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Witkin titled: "Further evaluation of the potential anxiolytic activity of imidazo[1,5-a][1,4]diazepin agents selective for α2/3-containing GABA(A) receptors" was accepted by Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior.

April 19th 2017: Alessandra Ebben, Jonathan Gould, and Alec Huber received the Summer SURF2017 award.

April 8th 2017: Prof. Arnold is giving a talk titled “Vitamin D research- From the past today” at the Science Olympiad at UWM.

April 2nd 2017: Victoriia Senych will present at the 253rd ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, California. The title of her poster is: "Synthesis of calcitroic acid to determine its potential for prevention of colon cancer."

April 2nd 2017: Margaret Guthrie will present at the 253rd ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, California. The title of her poster is: "Imaging the distribution of selective GABA(A) receptor modulators in the asthmatic lung using MALDI assisted mass spectrometry."

April 2nd 2017: Dr. Arnold will present at the 253rd ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, California. The title of his talk is: "Development of new therapies for asthma based on compounds that specifically target GABA(A) receptors in the lung."

March 31st 2017: Olivia Yu will present at the 20th Workshop of vitamin D in Orlando, Florida. The title of her talk is:" Investigations of calcitroic acid and calcitroic acid phase two metabolites and their biological function".

March 22nd 2017: Our collaborated work directed by Dr. Peng titled:"Hydrogen peroxide activated quinone methide precursors with enhanced DNA cross-linking capability and cytotoxicity towards cancer cells" was accepted by European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

March 9th 2017: Dr. Arnold received a technology licensing award and a patent award from the UWM Research Foundation for is vitamin D receptor coregulator inhibitors patent.

March 4th 2017: Dr. Arnold will present at the annual AAAAI meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The title of his poster is: "New Oral Treatments for Asthma through TissueSpecific Modulation of the GABA(A) Receptor."

March 1st 2017: Our collaborated work directed by Professor Fischer titled: "Pharmacological and antihyperalgesic properties of the novel α2/3 preferring GABAA receptor ligand MP-III-024' was accepted by Brain Research Bulletin.

March 1st 2017: Our research has been highlighted in the UWM Research magazine.

February 14th 2017: Our Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery video was released highlighting our research.

February 10th 2017: Radio interview with Bonnie North, WUWM Milwaukee Radio about vitamin D in the winter.

February 9th 2017: Arizona-based Systems Oncology has licensed our patented drug compounds. Here the news.

February 2017: 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th at 8 p.m. and 12th at 2 pm, Dr. Arnold will present a science bag lecture titled: "All about vitamin D" at the UWM Physical Building, Room 137.

February 2nd 2017: For the occation of the "World Cancer Day", our research got mentioned in the UWM Cancer video.

January 20th 2017: Viktoriia Senych and Alessandra Ebben received the Spring SURF2017 award.

January 10th 2017: Zakari Saad Agherrabi, Alec Thomas Huber and Alessandra Avles Ebben are new undergraduate student researchers in the Arnold Group.

January 8th 2017: Our collaborated work directed by Professor Palmer titled: "Identification of a novel, fast acting GABAergic anti-depressant' was accepted by Molecular Psychiatry. The work was also highlighted at newswise.com.

December 14st 2016: Tania Mutchie, Elliot DiMilo, Rashid Roni, and Ted Harris are new graduate students in the Arnold Group.

November 21st 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Optimization of Substituted Imidazobenzodiazepines as Novel Asthma Treatments" authored by Rajwana Jahan, Michael R Stephen, Gloria S Forkuo, Revathi Kodali, Margaret L Guthrie, Amanda N Nieman, Nina Y Yuan, Nicolas M Zahn, Michael M Poe, Guanguan Li, Olivia B Yu, Gene T Yocum, Charles W Emala, Douglas C Stafford, James M Cook, and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

October 24-26th 2016: Our group presented at the International Chemical Biology Society meeting in Madison Wisconsin: 1. Gloria Forkuo “Alpha 4&5-selective GABAA receptor positive allosteric modulators attenuates the asthma-like phenotype”; 2. Nicolas Zahn ”Nervous System Effects & Metabolic Analysis of Benzodiazepines in Human and Mouse Liver Microsomes”;  3. Olivia Yu “Synthesis of Calcitroic Acid to Determine Its Potential for Prevention of Colon Cancer”; 4. Amanda Nieman “"Targeting the immune system with subtype-selective GABA(A) receptor modulators to alleviate asthma symptoms.”

October 21st 2016: UWM report published a nice story about Nobel Prize recipient Ben Feringa and our group.

October 5th 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Synthesis and characterization of a novel GABAA receptor ligand that combines outstanding metabolic stability, pharmacokinetics, and anxiolytic efficacy", authored by Michael Poe, Kashi Reddy Methuku, Guanguan Li, Ashwini Verma, Kelly Teske, Douglas Stafford, Leggy Arnold, Jeffrey Cramer, Timothy Jones, Rok Cerne, Michael Krambis, Jeffrey Witkin, Enrique Jambrina, Sabah Rehman, Margot Ernst, James Cook and Jeffrey Schkeryantz was accepted by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

October 5th 2016: Prof. Ben Feringa received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for Molecular Motors. In the name of the Arnold Group: Congratulations Ben! I was very fortunate to have you as PhD adviser.

September 9th 2016: Benjamin Hartzler received the Fall SURF2016 award.

August 30th 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Calcitroic Acid - A Review", authored by Olivia B. Yu and Leggy A. Arnold was accepted by ACS Chemical Biology.

August 24th 2016: Leah Radde presented the second best poster at the Summer Undergraduate Student Poster Symposium titled:" Identification of Novel Pepsin Inhibitors for Target Drugs to Treat Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease".

August 18th 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Characterization of GABAA receptor ligands with automated patch-clamp using human neurons derived from pluripotent stem cells" authored by Nina Y. Yuan, Michael M. Poe, Christopher Witzigmann, James M. Cook, Douglas Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by the Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods.

July 15th 2016: Nina Yuan is defending her PhD thesis at 10:00 am in room CHEM190. The title of her thesis is: Development of cellular high-throughput assays to determine the electrophysiological profile of GABAA receptor modulators for neurology and immunology.

June 14th 2016: Our research in the area of asthma and cancer got mentioned on the UWM news.

May 21st 2016: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Nina Yuan received the Chemistry Alumni Award for Graduate Research for the 2nd best poster presentation titled: “Cross-Talk: The Brain and The Immune System – Functional GABAA Receptor on Leukocytes”.

May 21st 2016: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Nina Yuan received the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research 2016.

May 21st 2016: Our group presented the following work at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: 1. Benjamin D. Hartzler “Characterization of the GABA(A) Receptor Subunits in a Murine Model of Asthma”; 2. Gloria S. Forkuo “α4-selective GABAA receptor positive modulator attenuates the “asthma-like phenotype” in a murine asthma model”; 3. Revathi Kodali, “Metabolic Studies of Drug Candidates for Neurological Disorders and Asthma based on GABAA receptor subtype selective ligands using Mass Spectrometry”; 4. Margaret L. Guthrie “Development of a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for quantification of imidazobenzodiazepines following liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE)”; 5. Olivia Yu “Synthesis of Calcitroic Acid to Determine its Potential of Prevention of Colon Cancer”; 6. Nina Y. Yuan, “Cross-Talk: The Brain and The Immune System – Functional GABAA Receptor on Leukocytes”.

May 16th 2016: Amanda Nieman will present: "Targeting the immune system with subtype-selective GABA(A) receptor modulators to alleviate asthma symptoms" at Immunology 2016 in Seattle, Washington, from 2:30-3:45 pm at the Washington State Convention Center.

May 15th 2016: Gene T. Yocum will present: "Pharmacologic Properties of Selective GABA(A) Receptor Ligands that Relax Airway Smooth Muscle" at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Francisco, California, from 9:00-11:00 am, at the Moscone Center.

May 3rd 2016: Leah Radde and Victoriia Senych received the Summer SURF2016 award.

April 27th 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Development of GABA(A) Receptor Subtype-Selective Imidazobenzodiazepines as Novel Asthma treatments" authored by Gloria S. Forkuo, Margaret L. Guthrie, Nina Y. Yuan, Amanda N. Nieman, Revathi Kodali, Rajwana Jahan, Michael R. Stephen, Gene T. Yocum, Marco Treven, Michael M. Poe, Guanguan Li, Olivia B.Yu, Benjamin D. Hartzler, Nicolas M. Zahn , Margot Ernst, Charles W. Emala, Douglas C. Stafford, James M. Cook, and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by the Molecular Pharmaceutics.

April 6th 2016: Gloria Forkuo will present: "α4-selective GABA(A) receptor positive modulator attenuates the “asthma-like phenotype” in a murine asthma model" at the Experimental Biology Annual Meeting 2016 in San Diego from 12:30-2:30 pm and on the 7th from 5:30-8:00 pm at the San Diego Convention Center.

April 5-8th 2016: Margaret Guthrie will participate in the laboratory course at the National Reasearch Resource for Imaging Mass Spectrometry (IMS) at Vanderbilt University.

March 6th 2016: Prof. Arnold will present: "A New Pharmacological Approach for Asthma through Tissue-Specific Modulation of the GABA(A) Receptor" at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Annual Meeting 2016 in Los Angeles from 9:45-10:45 am at the Convention Center South Exhibit Hall H.

January 27th 2016: Dr. Fernando Ramos Morales and his son Rafael Ramos Morales from the Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa Mexico joined our group to synthesize some novel VDR ligands.

January 6th 2016: Gino Scunio and Benjamin Hartzler received the Spring SURF2016 award.

January 4th 2016: Our manuscript titled: "Synthesis and Evaluation of Vitamin D Receptor-Mediated Activities of Cholesterol and Vitamin D Metabolites" authored by Kelly A. Teske, Jonathon W. Bogart, Luis M. Sanchez, Olivia B. Yu, Joshua V. Preston, James M. Cook, Nicholas R. Silvaggi, Daniel D. Bikle, and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

December 22nd 2015: In collaboration with the Palmer group the manuscript titled: "Genetic and pharmacological manipulation of glyoxalase 1 regulates voluntary ethanol consumption in mice" authored by Katherine M. J. McMurray, Preetpal S. Sidhu, James M. Cook, Leggy A. Arnold and Abraham A. Palmer got accepted by Addiction Biology.

December 20th 2015: Kelly Teske (PhD) and Charles Stangl (BS) graduated from our group at UWM.

December 8th 2015: Benjamin Hartzler received the Robert G. Evarista Hammond Scholarship provided by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

December 2nd 2015: Our work got highlighted by the Shimadzu Journal. In addition, the manuscript titled: Metabolic Studies of Drug Candidates for Neurological Disorders and Asthma Based on GABAA Receptor Subtype Selective Ligands using Mass Spectrometry by Revathi Kodali, Margaret L. Guthrie, Michael M. Poe, Michael R. Stephen, Rajwana Jahan, Charles W. Emala,  James M. Cook, Douglas Stafford, and Leggy A. Arnold was published by the Shimadzu Journal, 3(3), 2015

November 30th 2015: Our review titled: "Inhibitors for the Vitamin D Receptor–Coregulator Interaction" authored by Kelly A. Teske, Olivia B. Yu and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by Vitamins and Hormones.

September 16th 2015: Our manuscript titled: "Anti-tumor activity of 3-indolylmethanamines 31B and PS121912" authored by Margaret L Guthrie, Preetpal S. Sidhu, Emily K. Hill, Timothy C. Horan, Premchendar Nandhikonda, Kelly Teske, Nina Y. Yuan, Marina Sidorko, Revathi Kodali, James M. Cook, Lanlan Han, Nicholas R. Silvaggi, Daniel D. Bikle, Richard G. Moore, Rakesh K. Singh and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by Anticancer Research.

August 25th 2015: Gino Scunio and Charles Strangl received the Fall SURF2015 award.

August 25th 2015: Kelly Teske will present her final defense in room CHEM123 at 11 am. The title of her thesis is: Part 1. The development of non-secosteroidal vitamin D receptor modulator and part 2 the development of a universal GTPase assay.

August 19th 2015: Revathi Kodali will present her paper (432) titled: "Metabolic studies of drug candidates for neurological disorders and asthma based on GABAA receptor subtype selective ligands using mass spectrometry" from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm during the general poster session of the medical chemistry division at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center at the 250th American Chemical Society Nation Meeting & Exposition.

August 19th 2015: Nicolas Zahn, Gino Scuncio, and Charles Stangl presented their research at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Nicolas won the Poster Award for the 3rd best poster presentation.

August 17th 2015: Margaret Guthrie will present her paper (133) titled: "Development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for quantification of subtype-selective GABAa receptor ligands following liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE)" from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm during the Sci-Mix poster session at Hall C of Boston Convention & Exhibition Center at the 250th American Chemical Society Nation Meeting & Exposition.

August 16th 2015: Kelly Teske will present her paper (245) titled: "Identification of active metabolites of lithocholic acid in respect to VDR binding" from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm during the general poster session of the medical chemistry division at the Grand Ballroom Westin Boston Waterfrontat the 250th American Chemical Society Nation Meeting & Exposition.

August 16th 2015: Margaret Guthrie will present her paper (133) titled: "Development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for quantification of subtype-selective GABAa receptor ligands following liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE)" from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm during the general analytical poster session at Hall C of Boston Convention & Exhibition Center at the 250th American Chemical Society Nation Meeting & Exposition.

July 10th 2015: Drs. Peng and Arnold receive the prestigious Research Growth Initiative Award from the UWM Office of Research. The grant of more than $180K will support the project titled: Hydrogen Peroxide Activated Quinone Methide Prodrugs for Tumor-Specific Destruction.

July 2nd 2015: In collaboration with the Cook group the manuscript titled: "A Review of the Updated Pharmacophore for the Alpha 5 GABA(A) Benzodiazepine Receptor Model" authored by Terry Clayton, Michael Poe, Sundari Rallapalli, Poonam Biawat, Miroslav Savic, James K. Rowlett, George Gallos, Charles W. Emala, Catherine C. Kaczorowski, James M. Cook, Douglas C. Stafford and Leggy A. Arnold got accepted by International Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

May 20th 2015: Gino Scunio and Charles Strangl received the Summer SURF2015 award.

May 2nd 2015: Nina Yuan presented a Blitz Talk at the 2015 GLCACS Annual Conference at Northwestern University at Chicago titled: "Electrophysiological Assay of GABAA Receptor: Roles in Neuropharmacology & Immunology". Among all presenations, Nina made the third place.

April 18th 2015: Gino Scuncio will present his poster at the 7th Yao Yuan Biotech-Pharma Symposium at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago titled: "Development of a High Throughput Screening Campaign to Identify Novel Pepsin Inhibitors to treat Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease".

April 9th 2015: We invited Prof. Richard Caprioli, who will give a talk titled: "Imaging Mass Spectrometry: Molecular Microscopy for Discovery in Biological and Clinical Research.

April 3rd 2015: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Chris Goertz received the Chemistry Alumni Award for Undergraduate Research for the 1st best poster presentation titled: "Development of a high throughput screening campaign for the identification of new pepsin inhibitors".

April 3rd 2015: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Kelly Teske received the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research 2015.

April 3rd 2015: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Nina Yuan received the Chemistry Alumni Award for Graduate Research for the 1st best poster presentation titled: “Electrophysiological Assay of GABA(A) Receptor Roles in Neuropharmacology & Immunology”.

April 3rd 2015: Our group presented the following work at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: 1. Gloria Forkuo “Characterization of airway hyper-responsiveness in a murine model of asthma with the Buxco® FinePointe Non-Invasive Airway Mechanics instrumentation”; 2. Amanda Youmans "The Effect of γ-Aminobutyric Acid on IL-2 Production in Jurkat Cell Line”; 3. Margaret L. Guthrie “Development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the quantitation of benzodiazepines in mouse tissue homogenates ”; 4. Kelly Teske “Identification of New Vitamin D Receptor-Coregulator Inhibitors among Nuclear Receptor Ligands”; 5. Olivia Yu “Development of a Direct VDR Binding Assay Based on Fluorescence Polarization”; 6. Nina Yuan "Electrophysiological Assay of GABA(A) Receptor Roles in Neuropharmacology & Immunology”; 7. Revathi Kodali "In Vitro Metabolic Stability Studies of GABAA Receptor Subtype Selective Ligands in Liver Sub-Cellular Fractions"; 8. Chris Goetz "Development of a high throughput screening campaign for the identification of new pepsin inhibitors".

March 6th 2015: We invited Prof. Chris Cunningham, who gave a talk titled: "Design, Synthesis, and Pharmacological Characterization of Opioid AnalgesicsWith Reduced Tolerance".

January 27th 2015: Luis Sanchez, Chris Goetz and Gino Scunio received the SURF2015 award.

January 15th 2015: Gloria Forkuo started as a postdoctoral researcher in our group spearheading our Asthma project.

December 17th 2014: The executive committee of the Division of Natural Science recommended Dr. Arnold for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor.

December 16th 2014: We welcome our new graduate students Amanda Youmans and Olivia Yu.

November 27th 2014: Our group got highlighted by a local TV station in regard to our Asthma work.

October 8th 2014: Dr. Arnold will present a seminar titled: Small Molecule-Mediated Gene Regulation Caused by Vitamin D Receptor-Coactivator Binding Inhibition at the Department of Biochemistry, Medical College of Wisconsin.

September 10th 2014: 1R01HL118561-01A1 grant"Development of new drugs for asthma by targeting GABA(A) receptors in the lung" got awarded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to Dr. James Cook as Priniple Investigator and Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold as Co-Investigator.

September 9th 2014: Christopher Goetz presents his research at the Medical College of Wisconsin Research Day 2014.

September 4th 2014: Luis Sanchez received the SURF2014 award.

August 15th 2014: Joshua Preston, Skylar Gabel-Eissens, and Chris Goetz presented their research at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Chris Goetz won the Best Poster Award.

August 13th 2014: Kelly Teske will present her oral presentation titled: "Development of Selective Non-Secosteroid Vitamin D Receptor Inhibitors" at the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition at the MEDI section in San Francisco.

August 10th 2014: Kelly Teske will present her poster titled: "Identification of New Vitamin D Receptor-Coregulator Inhibitors among Nuclear Receptor Ligands" at the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco.

July 31st 2014: Dr. Arnold will present a talk at the University of Groningen, Netherlands title: "Novel Modulators for the Vitamin D Receptor As Drug Candidates".

July 25th 2014: Our publication titled: "Anticancer activity of VDR-Coregulator Inhibitor PS121912" was accepted in Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology.

July 8th 2014: The catalyst grant "Pharmacological Proof of Concept for a First-in-Class Asthma Therapy" got awarded by the UWM Research Foundation to Dr. James Cook as Priniple Investigator and Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold as Co-Investigator.

July 8th 2014: The catalyst grant "The pharmacokinetics and in vivo efficacy of ROS-activated anticancer prodrugs" got awarded by the UWM Research Foundation to Dr. Xiaohua Peng as Priniple Investigator and Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold as Co-Investigator.

July 6th 2014: Nina Yuan will present her oral talk at the Gordon Research Seminar for Ion Channels at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley MA United States titled: Development of high-throughput assays to identify new alpha subtype-selective GABAa receptor modulators to treat anxiety and depression disorders.

June 19th 2014: Dr. Arnold will present a talk at the Vitamin D Workshop at Chicago with the title: "Vitamin D Receptor-Coregulator Inhibitors as Anti-Cancer Reagents.

June 1st 2014: Skylar Gabel-Eissens from UW-Whitewater will join the Arnold Group during the summer to synthesize new VDR-Coregulator Inhibitors.

May 15th 2014: Luis Sanchez, Joshua Preston, and Chris Goetz received each the SURF2014 award.

April 23th 2014: Nina Yuan received a travel grant for the Gordon Research Seminar for Ion Channels.

April 20th 2014: Kelly Teske received a travel grant from the ACS MEDI for 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco.

April 18th 2014: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Jonathan Bogart received the “Kovacic Award of Outstanding Performance in Organic Chemistry” and the “Outstanding Performance Award in Analytical Chemistry”

April 18th 2014: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: Kelly Teske received the Chemistry Alumni Award for Graduate Research for the 3rd best poster presentation titled: “Further Investigation of the First Non-Secosteroidal Antagonist for the Vitamin D Receptor”.

April 18th 2014: Our group presented the following work at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Symposium: 1. Kelly Teske “Development of Selective Non-Secosteroid Vitamin D Receptor Inhibitors”; 2. Jonathan W. Bogart "The Synthesis and Evaluation of Potential Non-Secosteroid VDR-coactivator Inhibitors”; 3. Margaret L. Guthrie “Development of a Metabolic Stability Assay to Determine Drug-like Properties of Small Molecules”; 4. Joshua Preston “Sequence Verification of Nuclear Receptor Plasmids for Ligand-mediated Transcription Assays”; 5. Belaynesh Feleke “Novel VDR-Coregulator Inhibitors”; 6. Nina Yuan "Identifying New Treatments for the Brain: Electrophysiological Assay and Generation of a Stable Recombinant Cell Line”.

April 16th 2014: Dr. Arnold was selected to recieve the Office of Research/UWM Foundation Research Award.

April 11th 2014: Our group presented that following work at the UW-System Symposium for Undergraduate Researrch and Creatice Activity: Joshua Preston “Sequence Verification of Nuclear Receptor Plasmids for Ligand-mediated Transcription Assays” and Jonathan W. Bogart "The Synthesis and Evaluation of Potential Non-Secosteroid VDR-coactivator Inhibitors”. Jonathan was awared for his Outstanding Presentation.

April 10th 2014: Dr. Arnold will give a seminar about high throughput screening, assay development and hit validation at the Medical College of Wisconsin in course of the 2014 spring class titled Models of Disease and Drug Discovery.

April 9th 2014: Our group in collaboration with AviMed Pharmaceuticals got awarded a Translational Grant sponsored by the SE Wisconsin Applied Chemistry Center of Excellence titled: Commercialization of a Universal Kinase and GTPase Assay.

April 8th 2014: Our manuscript: "Identification of Pan Nuclear Receptor Modulators Among Nuclear Receptor Ligands using virtual screening" was accepted in Nuclear Receptor Research.

April 6th 2014: Kelly Teske's presentation titled “Development of Selective Non-Secosteroid Vitamin D Receptor Inhibitors” got accepted as oral presentation at the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco.

April 3rd 2014: Nina Yuan received the Student Travel Award sponsored by the UWM Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

April 2nd 2014: Kelly Teske and Nina Yuan received both the Graduate Student Travel Award sponsored by the UWM Graduate school

April 1st 2014: Nina Yuan got accepted for the Gordon Research Seminar for Ion Channels at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley MA United States.

March 19th 2014: Dr. Sidhu will present "Development and Biology of Anti-Tumor effect of a novel Inhibitor of VDR and its coactivator interactions" at the ACS conference in Dallas, on Wednesday March 19th at 1:30 pm.

March 16th 2014: Dr. Arnold will present "Discovery of transcriptional modulators that target the vitamin D receptor" at the ACS conference in Dallas, on Sunday March 16th at 9:10 am.

March 8th, 2014: Our group presented the following work at the 6th Yao Yuan Biotech-Pharma Symposium at the Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago 1. Kelly Teske “Further Investigation of the First Non-Secosteroidal Antagonist for the Vitamin D Receptor”; 2. Nina Yuan “Identifying New Treatments for the Brain: Anxiolytic Neurochemistry and Electrophysiology”; 3. Belaynesh Feleke “Novel VDR-Coregulator Inhibitors”; 4. Preetpal S. Sidhu “Novel VDR-Coactivator Inhibitors and Their Anti-Cancer Effects”; 5. Joshua Preston “Sequence Verification of Nuclear Receptor Plasmids for Ligand-mediated Transcription Assays”; 6. Jonathan W. Bogart “The Synthesis and evaluation of potential non-secosteroid VDR-coactivator inhibitors”.

March 5th-7th 2014: Dr. Arnold will host the Sosnovsky Lecture Series speaker 2014 Professor Lawrence Marnett, Director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. Prof. Marnett will give a talk on Thursday the 6th titled "Targeting Cyclooxygenases as a Strategy for Improved Cancer Detection and Therapy" and a second talk on Friday the 7th titled "Oxygenation of Endocannabinoids by Cyclooxygenase-2: Novel Bioactive Lipid and Therapeutic Opportunities.

March 3rd 2014: Dr. Arnold was received the Technology Licensing Award from the UWM Research Foundation for the MSTI Assay Technology.

February 21st 2014: Dr. Arnold will present " Novel Vitamin D receptor Modulators as Drug Candidates" at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dpartment of Medicianl Chemistry and Pharmacognosy from 11:30-12:30.

Feburary 10th 2014: We commercialized our MSTI probe to KeraFAST (Boston, USA). This probe can now be ordered online to identify promiscuous compounds among screening libraries.

February 5th 2014: Nina Yuan will present her Advanced Qualifying Examination titled: Application of automated patch clamp to determine GABA(A) receptor modulation by small molecules, Location Chemistry 110, 9:00 am.

Feburary 4th 2014: Our manuscript: "Modulation of Transcription mediated by the Vitamin D Receptor and the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor δ in the presence of GW0742 analogs" was accepted in Journal of Biomolecular Research & Therapeutics.

January 30th 2014: Jonathan Bogart, Luis Sanchez, Robin Goy, and Joshua Preston received each the SURF2014 award.

January 29th 2014: Dr. Arnold accepted to served on the Advisory Boad of Bridges and Cures.

January 24th 2014: Dr. Chris Veldkamp (UW Whitewater) will present his semiar titled: "Chemokines, Cancer Metastasis and Drug Discovery Efforts" at UWM in room CHEM190 at 3:00 pm.

January 8th 2014: Our manuscript: "Development of Novel Vitamin D Receptor-Coactivator Inhibitors" was accepted in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.

December 6th 2013: Our manuscript: "A Fluorescence-Based High Throughput Assay for the Determination of Small Molecule-Human Serum Albumin Protein Binding",  was accepted in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

November 5th 2013: The abstract from Preetpal Sidhu"Development and Biology of Anti-Tumor effect of a novel Inhibitor of VDR and its coactivator interactions" was accepted for the ACS conference in Dallas, for Wednesday March 19th at 1:30 pm.

November 5th 2013: The abstract from Prof. Arnold"Discovery of Transcriptional Modulators that target the Vitamin D Receptor" was accepted for the ACS conference in Dallas, for Sunday March 16th at 8:30 pm.

November 1st 2013: The following students presented their research work at the American Chemical Society's Younger Chemists Committee poster presentation: 1. Joshua Preston “Sequence Verification of Nuclear Receptor Plasmids for Ligand-mediated Transcription Assays”; 2. Jonathan Bogart “The Synthesis and Evaluation of Potential Non-Secosteroid VDR-Coactivator Inhibitors”; 3. Belaynesh Feleke “Novel VDR-Coregulator inhibitors”; 4. Kelly Teske "Identification of the first non-secesteroid antagonist for the vitamin D receptor".

October 30th 2013: Collaborative publication in Genes & Cancer with Dr. Rakesh Singh: PT19c, Another Nonhypercalcemic Vitamin D2 Derivative, Demonstrates Antitumor Efficacy in Epithelial Ovarian and Endometrial Cancer Models.

October 15th 2013: Dr. Arnold accepted the invitation of Biomolecular Research & Therapeutics to become an editorial board member.

October 11th 2013: Dr. Arnold presented at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, WI, titled:Discovery and Development of of non-secosteroid vitamin D receptor antagonists.

October 11th 2013: Dr. Arnold accepted the invitation of Nuclear Receptor Research to become an accociate edtior.

August 19th 2013: Jonathan Bogart presented the second best poster at the Undergraduate Research Summer Poster Session at UWM, Milwaukee. His poster was titled: The synthesis of non-seco-steroid VDR-coactivator inhibitors using the Hantzsch reaction.

August 19th 2013: Robin Goy presented his poster at the Undergraduate Research Summer Poster Session at UWM, Milwaukee, which was titled: Expression and Purification of the Retinoid X Receptor Gamma (RXRG).

August 19th 2013: Joshua Preston presented his poster at the Undergraduate Research Summer Poster Session at UWM, Milwaukee, which was titled: Gene sequencing of the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Alpha (PPARα) in pBIND.

August 3-4th 2013: Preetpal Sidhu presented at the Gordon Research Seminar "Medicinal Chemistry", Colby-Sawyer College New London NH, titled:  Development of first nanomolar inhibitor of the Vitamin D Receptor-Coactivator interaction.

June 13th 2013: Dr. Arnold recieved the Young Investigator Award at the 16th Workshop on Vitamin D, San Francisco, CA.

June 11-14th 2013: Dr. Arnold presented at the 16th Workshop on Vitamin D, San Francisco, CA, titled: Discovery and Development of of non-secosteroid vitamin D receptor antagonists.

June 2-7th 2013: Dr. Arnold presented at the Gordon Research Conference "High Throughput Chemistry & Chemical Biology, June 2-7, Colby-Sawyer College New London NH, titled: Identification and development of three new distinct classes of VDR non-secosteroidal modulators for metabolic diseases and cancer.

May 30th 2013: Dr. Arnold presented at Medical College of Wisconsin at the MASBIG meeting at 4:00 pm, room C2195 titled: Identification and Development of Three Different Classes of Vitamin D Receptor-Coactivator Binding Inhibitors.

May 29th 2013: Our manuscript titled: PPAR δ agonist GW0742 interacts weakly with multiple nuclear receptors including the vitamin D receptor was accepted for publication by Biochemistry.

May 22th 2013: Joshua Preston (Undergraduate Student) received the Summer 2013 SURF award.

May 19th 2013: Megan McCallum (Ph.D.) and Nicholas Nassif (B.S.) graduated from UWM.

May 17th 2013: Robin Goy (Undergraduate Student) received the Summer 2013 SURF award.

May 17th 2013: Jon Bogart (Undergraduate Student) received the Summer 2013 SURF award.

April 20th 2013: Megan McCallum received the Graduate School Research Award (Poster Award).

April 20th 2013: Nina Yuan received the Keith Hall Award for Excellence in Graduate Research (Poster Award).

April 20th 2013: Kelly Teske received the Moszynski Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

April 20th 2013: Megan McCallum received the Sosnovsky Award for Excellence in Graduate Research.

April 19th 2013: Nina Yuan presented at the Chemistry&Biochemistry Recruitment Day: Uppers, Downers, All Arounders: Identifying New Treatments for the Human Brain.

April 18th 2013: Megan McCallum passed her final defense. Her thesis is titled: High throughput approaches for the assessment for factors influencing bioavailability of small molecules in preclinical drug development.

April 12th 2013: R01MH096463 grant"Design fo New Therapeutic Agents to Tread Schizophrenia" got awarded by the National Institute of Mental Health to Dr. James Cook as Priniple Investigator and Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold as Co-Investigator.

April 12th 2013: Nicholas Nassif will present at the NCUR 2013 in La Crosse, at 3:30 pm, poster session 8, titled: Expression and purification of the vitamin D receptor ligand binding domain for the identification of vitamin D receptor-coactivator inhibitors.

April 10th 2013: Dr. Preetpal Sidhu will present at the ACS meeting in New Orleans at 8:30 am, session: MEDI: Division of Medicinal Chemistry, titled:Chemical improvement of pharmacological properties of irreversible VDR-coactivator inhibitors and their evaluation in vivo using an ovarian cancer animal model.

April 10th 2013: Kelly Teske will present at the ACS meeting in New Orleans at 7:00 pm, session: MEDI: Division of Medicinal Chemistry, titled: Identification of the first non-secesteroid antagonist for the vitamin D receptor.

April 8th 2013: Kelly Teske will present at the ACS meeting in New Orleans at 8:00 pm, session: MEDI: Division of Medicinal Chemistry, titled: Identification of the first non-secesteroid antagonist for the vitamin D receptor.

April 7th 2013: Megan McCallum will present at the ACS meeting in New Orleans at 1:05 pm, session: Advances in Biopharmaceutical and Pharmaceutical Analysis, titled: A new fluoresent-based high throuphput method for the quantification of drug-protein binding interactions.

April 7th 2013: Megan McCallum will present at the ACS meeting in New Orleans at 1:45 pm, session: Advances in Biopharmaceutical and Pharmaceutical Analysis, titled: A high throuput approach for the identification of promiscuous inhibitors among screening libraries with the use of a nucleophilic fluorescent probe. Megan will also be the co-moderator for this session.

March 10th 2013: Dr. Arnold will present at the 2nd Congress of Steroid Research in Chicago at 10:15 am and 15:45 pm, poster session A, titled: Development of the first non-secosteroid antagonist to modulate vitamin D receptor function.

March 8th 2013: Kelly Teske presented her Advanced Qualifying Examination titled: Development of of novel vitamin D receptor modulators. Location Chemistry 110, 11:00 am.

February 8th 2013: Both, Megan McCallum and Kelly Teske, received the Graduate Student Travel Support awarded by the UWM Graduate School.

February 4th 2013: Nicholas Nassif (undergraduate student) received the Spring 2013 SURF award.

January 25th 2013: Dr. Moray Campbell from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute will give a talk titled "Expression and Regulation of micro-RNA in prostate cancer", room CHEM180 at 3:00 pm.

January 16th 2013: Nicholas Nassif's (undergraduate student) abstract submission was accepted at the NCUR conference 2013 in La Crosse, WI

January 14th 2013: Dr Premchendar Nandhikonda is presenting at the slas 2nd annual conference in Orlando (FL): Identification of Promiscuous Inhibitors in Screening Libraries with the use of an Intrinsically Fluorescent Probe: A High Throughput Screening Approach.

January 6th 2013: Publication in Journal of Biomolecular Screening accepted: High throughput identification of promiscuous inhibitors from screening libraries with the use of a thiol-containing fluorescent probe.

December 7th 2012: Megan McCallum will present her preliminary thesis review titled: High throughput approaches for the assessment of factions influencing bioavalability of small molecules in pre-clinial drug development. Location Chemistry 110, 1:30 pm.

November 6th 2012: Postdoctoral Researcher Interview: Varun Dewan (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry), Ohio State University Columbus - "Dissecting Host-Viral Interactions in HIV-1 for Therapeutic Development" Location: Chem123, 2:30 pm.

November 1st 2012: Collaboration with CoNCERT Pharmaceuticals Inc. to further characterize CTP-354; a non-sedating subtype selective GABA(A) modulator.

September 21st 2012: Nina Yuan will present her seminar titled: Tunable, light-controlled interacting protein tags (TULIPs): a LOV story. Location: Chemistry 180, 3:00 pm.

August 27th 2012: 1R01NS076517-01A1 grant"Synthesis of Alpha2/Alpha3 GABA Agonists to Treat Neuropathic Pain" got awarded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to Dr. James Cook as Priniple Investigator and Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold as Co-Investigator.

August 17th 2012: Second Best Poster: Robin Goy presented the second best poster during the Summer Undergraduate Research Poster Session, UWM.

July 31st 2012: Catalyst Grant: Our group got awarded with the Catalyst Grant by the UWM Research Foundation "In vivo evaluation of selective inhibitors of the vitamin D receptor-coregulator interaction" funded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation.

July 18th 2012: New Postdoctoral Researcher Hire: Dr. PreetPal Singh Sidu accepted the position of a postdoctoral researcher in our group. Welcome Preetpal!

June 24th 2012: Postdoctoral Researcher Interview: PreetPal Singh Sidu (Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA) - Designing Allosteric Inhibitors of Thombin, Wednesday June 27th, 2012, 2:00pm.

May 7th 2012: Publication in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry accepted: "Discovery of the First Irreversible Small Molecule Inhibitors of the Interaction between the Vitamin D Receptor and Coactivators".

March 7th 2012: Research Growth Initiative grant "Vitamin D Receptor-Coregulator Interactions as Anticancer Targets" got awarded by the UWM Graduate School to Dr. Alexander (Leggy) Arnold.