Jonathan L. Vennerstrom, Ph.D.

Professor and Interim Chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
College of Pharmacy
University of Nebraska Medical Center
986025 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-6025
402-559-5362 (Office)
402-559-9543 (Fax)
jvenners@unmc.edu

Teaching Activities:
Dr. Vennerstrom lectures in Medicinal Chemistry I and Medicinal Chemistry II where he is course coordinator. At the graduate level Dr. Vennerstrom is the course coordinator for Advanced Medicinal Chemistry and Organic Spectroscopic Structural Analysis and he lectures in Innovative Drug Delivery Systems.

Research Activities/Interests:
The research activity of Dr. Vennerstrom’s laboratory is focused on antiparasitic drug discovery, particularly antimalarial drug design and synthesis and the investigation of heme as a mechanistic intersection for antimalarial drugs.  Work is also ongoing in the discovery of new inhibitors of Botulinum neurotoxin.

Recent Publications:

  1. Kaiser, M.; Wittlin, S.; Nehrbass-Stuedli, A.; Dong, Y.; Wang, X.; Hemphill, A.; Matile, H.; Brun, R.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  Peroxide Bond-Dependent Antiplasmodial Specificity of Artemisinin and OZ277 (RBx11160).  Antimicrob. Agents Chemother.  2007, 51, 2991-2993.
  2. Flaherty, D. P.; Walsh, S. M.; Kiyota, T.; Dong, Y.; Ikezu, T.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  Polyfluorinated Bis-styrylbenzene β-Amyloid Plaque Binding Ligands.  J. Med. Chem.  2007, 50, 4986-4992.
  3. Wang, X.; Dong, Y.; Wittlin, S.; Creek, D.; Chollet, J.; Charman, S. A.; Santo Tomas, J.; Scheurer, C.; Snyder, C.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  Spiro and Dispiro-1,2-dioxolanes:  Contribution of Iron(II)-mediated One-electron vs. Two-electron Reduction to the Activity of Antimalarial Peroxides.  J. Med. Chem.  2007, 50, 5840-5847.
  4. Creek, D. J.; Charman, W. N.; Chiu, F. C. K.; Prankerd, R. J.; Dong, Y.; Vennerstrom, J. L.; Charman, S. A.  Relationship between Antimalarial Activity and Haem Alkylation for Spiro- and Dispiro-1,2,4-trioxolane Antimalarials.  Antimicrob. Agents Chemother.  2008, 52, 1291-1296.
  5. Hermone, A. R.; Burnett, J. C.; Nuss, J. E.; Tressler, L. E.; Nguyen, T. L.; Šolaja, B. A.; Vennerstrom, J. L.; Schmidt, J. J.; Wipf, P.; Bavari, S.; Gussio, R.  Three-dimensional Database Mining Identifies a Unique Chemotype that Unites Structurally Diverse Botulinum Neurotoxin Serotype A Inhibitors in a Three-zone Pharmacophore.  ChemMedChem  2008, 3, 1905-1912.
  6. Flaherty, D. P.; Dong, Y.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  A One-pot Synthesis of Unsymmetrical Bis-styrylbenzenes.  Tetrahedron Lett.  2009, 50, 6228-6230.
  7. Dong, Y.; Wittlin, S.; Sriraghavan, K.; Chollet, J.; Charman, S. A.; Charman, W. N.; Scheurer, C.; Urwyler, H.; Santo Tomas, J.; Snyder, C.; Creek, D. J.; Morizzi, J.; Koltun, M.; Matile, H.; Wang. X.; Padmanilayam, M.; Tang, Y.; Dorn, A.; Brun, R.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  The Structure-Activity Relationship of the Antimalarial Ozonide Arterolane (OZ277).  J. Med. Chem.  2010, 53, 481-491.
  8. Nuss, J. E.; Dong, Y.; Wanner, L. M.; Ruthel, G.; Wipf, P.; Gussio, R.; Vennerstrom, J. L.; Bavari, S.; Burnett, J. C.  Pharmacophore Refinement Guides the Design of Nanomolar-Range Botulinum Neurotoxin Serotype A Light Chain Inhibitors.  ACS Med. Chem. Lett.  2010, 1, 301-305.
  9. Charman, S. A.; Arbe-Barnes, S.; Bathurst, I. C.; Brun, R.; Campbell, M.; Charman, W. N.; Chiu, F. C. K.; Chollet, J.; Craft, C. J.; Creek, D. J.; Dong, Y.; Matile, H.; Maurer, M.; Morizzi, J.; Nguyen, T.; Papastogiannidis, P.; Scheurer, C.; Shackleford, D. M.; Sriraghavan, K.; Stingelin, L.; Tang, Y.; Urwyler, H.; Wang, X.; White, K. L.; Wittlin, S.; Zhou, L.; Vennerstrom, J. L.  Synthetic Ozonide Drug Candidate OZ439 Offers New Hope For a Single-dose Cure of Uncomplicated Malaria.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.  2011, 108, 4400-4405.
  10. Keiser, J.; Ingram, K.; Vargas, M.; Chollet, J.; Wang, X.; Dong, Y.; Vennerstrom, J. L. In Vivo Activity of Aryl Ozonides against Schistosoma Species.  Antimicrob. Agents Chemother.  2012, 56, 1090-1092. 

Jonathan L. Vennerstrom, Ph.D.
Jonathan Vennerstrom