Frank Schoenen
- Sr. Associate Researcher, Higuchi Biosciences Center
- Medicinal Chemist, Target Acceleration Group, University of Kansas Cancer Center
Contact Info
Biography —
Frank J. Schoenen, Ph.D., received the Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Rockhurst College (Kansas City, MO), his doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, and a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award from the National Cancer Institute to support postdoctoral studies at Yale University and Harvard University. In 1990, following his postdoctoral studies, he joined the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (Research Triangle Park, NC) as a medicinal chemist working in the inflammation and oncology therapeutic areas and in high-throughput chemistry at the early stages of drug discovery.
In 2005, Schoenen returned to the Heartland and academia and joined the NIH-funded University of Kansas (KU) Chemical Methodologies and Library Development Center as the Associate Director for the Administrative Core and the Director for the Synthesis Core. This led naturally in 2008 to his position as Associate Director, Project Manager, and Chemistry Team Leader for the KU Specialized Chemistry Center, one of only two national laboratories funded by the NIH Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network to support synthesis and medicinal chemistry aspects of hit-to-probe optimization. Currently, Schoenen is Associate Research Professor in the Higuchi Biosciences Center at the University of Kansas, and Medicinal Chemist on the Target Acceleration Group sponsored by the Drug Discovery, Delivery & Experimental Therapeutics Research Program within the University of Kansas Cancer Center. In addition to collaborative programs studying helicase inhibitors, inhibitors of E. coli bacterial capsule biogenesis, and inhibitors of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore, he collaborates to study inhibitors of the AAA ATPase p97 and compounds that reduce the prevalence of the perinucleolar compartment, as potential anti-tumor and anti-metastatic agents.
Selected Publications —
Vekaria PH, Home T, Weir S, Schoenen FJ and Rao R (2016) Targeting p97 to Disrupt Protein Homeostasis in Cancer. Front. Oncol. 6, 181. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2016.00181. eCollection 2016.
Aflaki E, Borger DK, Moaven N, Stubblefield BK, Rogers SA, Patnaik S, Schoenen FJ, Westbroek W, Zheng W, Sullivan P, Fujiwara H, Sidhu R, Khaliq ZM, Lopez GJ, Goldstein DS, Ory DS, Marugan J, Sidransky E (2016) A New Glucocerebrosidase Chaperone Reduces α-Synuclein and Glycolipid Levels in iPSC-Derived Dopaminergic Neurons from Patients with Gaucher Disease and Parkinsonism. J. Neurosci. 36, 7441-7452. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0636-16.2016
Kuramoto K, Wang N, Fan Y, Zhang W, Schoenen FJ, Frankowski KJ, Marugan J, Zhou Y, Huang S, He C (2016) Autophagy activation by novel inducers prevents BECN2-mediated drug tolerance to cannabinoids. Autophagy. Jun 15:1-12. [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1080/15548627.2016.1187367
Gold B, Smith R, Nguyen Q, Roberts J, Ling Y, Lopez Quezada L, Somersan S, Warrier T, Little D, Pingle M, Zhang D, Ballinger E, Zimmerman M, Dartois V, Hanson P, Mitscher LA, Porubsky P, Rogers S, Schoenen FJ, Nathan C, Aubé J. (2016) Novel Cephalosporins Selectively Active on Nonreplicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J. Med. Chem. 59, 6027-6044. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.5b01833. Epub 2016 Jun 17.
Gui L, Zhang X, Li K, Frankowski KJ, Li S, Wong DE, Moen DR, Porubsky PR, Lin HJ, Schoenen FJ, Chou TF (2016) Evaluating p97 Inhibitor Analogues for Potency against p97-p37 and p97-Npl4-Ufd1 Complexes. ChemMedChem. 11, 953-957. doi: 10.1002/cmdc.201600036. Epub 2016 Apr 4.
Roy S, Šileikytė J, Neuenswander B, Hedrick MP, Chung TD, Aubé J, Schoenen FJ, Forte MA, Bernardi P (2016) N-Phenylbenzamides as Potent Inhibitors of the Mitochondrial Permeability Transition Pore. ChemMedChem. 11, 283-288. doi: 10.1002/cmdc.201500545. Epub 2015 Dec 23.
Arshad M, Goller CC, Pilla D, Schoenen FJ, Seed PC (2016) Threading the Needle: Small-Molecule Targeting of a Xenobiotic Receptor to Ablate Escherichia coli Polysaccharide Capsule Expression Without Altering Antibiotic Resistance. J. Infect. Dis. 213, 1330-1339. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiv584. Epub 2015 Dec 15.