Jeffrey Gustafson

Research in the Gustafson group strives to apply innovative chemical strategies towards complex biological problems. Ongoing projects focus on three main areas (a) The development of chemical methodologies that enable the enantioselective synthesis of complex molecules; (b) The application of these methodologies to access new selective small molecule probes pertaining to aberrant protein phosphorylation; and (c) The design, synthesis and evaluation of small molecule vanadate complexes as phosphatase inhibitors.

Graduate students who join my lab will receive a thorough training in organic chemistry (i.e. asymmetric catalysis, organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry). Cutting edge analytical techniques such as NMR spectroscopy and HPLC will be constantly utilized to analyze each reaction. Additionally, the interdisciplinary nature of this research will expose graduate students to diverse techniques from other disciplines such as molecular biology (recombinant protein synthesis and purification, Western blot analysis) and biochemistry (in vitro inhibition assays). As time progresses gifted students will be able to emphasize any or all of these areas depending on their interests. As a new faculty member I am actively recruiting talented Masters and Ph.D. students to join my lab.

As an alumnus of SDSU who has greatly benefitted from participating in undergraduate research, I understand the vital importance of these endeavors towards the career advancement of SDSU students, and thus enthusiastically encourage talented undergraduates to perform research in my laboratory.

Recent publications:

"Controlling Ibrutinib's Conformations about Its Heterobiaryl Axis to Increase BTK Selectivity," Toenjes S.T., Heydari B.S., Albright S.T., Hazin R., Ortiz M.A., Piedrafita F.J., Gustafson J.L., ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters 14, 305-311 (2023). (doi: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.2c00523.)

"Atropisomerism in the Pharmaceutically Relevant Realm," Basilaia M., Chen M.H., Secka J., Gustafson J.L., Accounts of Chemical Research 55, 2904-2919 (2022). (doi: 10.1021/acs.accounts.2c00500.)

"Approaches toward Atropisomerically Stable and Conformationally Pure Diarylamines," Vaidya S.D., Heydari B.S., Toenjes S.T., Gustafson J.L.,
Journal of Organic Chemistry (2022). (doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.2c00451.)

"Catalytic atroposelective dynamic kinetic resolutions and kinetic resolutions towards 3-arylquinolinesviaSNAr," Cardenas M.M., Saputra M.A., Gordon D.A., Sanchez A.N., Yamamoto N., Gustafson J.L., Chemical Communications 57, 10087-10090 (2021). (doi: 10.1039/d1cc04335h.)

"Atropisomerism as inspiration for new chemistry," Cardenas M.M., Nguyen A.D., Brown Z.E., Heydari B.S., Heydari B.S., Vaidya S.D., Gustafson J.L., Arkivoc 2021, 20-47 (2021). (doi: 10.24820/ARK.5550190.P011.382.)

"Redox-Responsive H-Bonding: Amplifying the Effect of Electron Transfer Using Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer," Choi H., Baek K., Toenjes S.T., Gustafson J.L., Smith D.K., Journal of the American Chemical Society 142, 17271-17276 (2020). (doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c07841.)

"Catalyst-Controlled Regioselective Chlorination of Phenols and Anilines through a Lewis Basic Selenoether Catalyst," Dinh A.N., Maddox S.M., Vaidya S.D., Saputra M.A., Nalbandian C.J., Gustafson J.L., Journal of Organic Chemistry 85, 13895-13905 (2020). (doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.0c01917.)

"Discovery of cyclic guanidine-linked sulfonamides as inhibitors of LMTK3 kinase,"
Maria A. Ortiz, Heather Michaels, Brandon Molina, Sean Toenjes, Jennifer Davis, Guya Diletta Marconi, David Hecht, Jeffrey L. Gustafson, F. Javier Piedrafita, Adel Nefzi, Biol. & Medicinal Chem. Lett. 30, 127108 (2020). (10.1016/j.bmcl.2020.127108.)

2022 Virtual and Immersive Teaching and Learning Fellowship

2022 Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellowship

2021 Most Influential Faculty Member in Chemistry and Biochemistry