I am currently a PhD candidate in Organic/Medicinal Chemistry at Northeastern University. I am part of the Center for Drug Discovery under the direction of Dr. Alex Makriyannis. Here my work focuses on synthesizing covalent endocannabinoid ligands to probe the cannabinoid receptors, chemically and metabolically stable 2-arachidonoylglycerol analogs, and N-acylethanolamine hydrolyzing acid amidase inhibitors.

 I am originally from Windsor, CT where I graduated from Windsor High School in '03 and went on to the University of New Haven, where I obtained a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Forensic Science.

Publications: (Click on citation for a link to article)

Whitten, K. M.; Makriyannis, A.; Vadivel, S. K., Enzymatic Synthesis of N-Acylethanolamines: Direct Method for the Aminolysis of Esters. Tetrahedron Letters 2012. Accepted http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tetlet.2012.08.042

West, J. M.; Zvonok, N.; Whitten, K. M.; Vadivel, S. K.; Bowman, A. L.; Makriyannis, A. Biochemical and Mass Spectrometic Characterization of Human N-acylethanolamine-hydrolyzing Acid Amidase Inhibition. PLoS One 2012, 7 (8), e43877.

Whitten, K.M.; Makriyannis, A.; Vadivel, S.K., Application of chemoenzymatic hydrolysis in the synthesis of 2-monoacylglycerols. Tetrahedron 2012, 68 (27-28), 5422-5428.

West, J. M.; Zvonok, N.; Whitten, K. M.; Wood, J. T.; Makriyannis, A., Mass Spectrometric Characterization of Human N-acylethanolamine-hydrolyzing Acid Amidase. J. Proteome Res., 2012, 11 (2), pp 972–981

Vadivel, S. K.; Whitten, K. M.; Makriyannis, A., Chemoenzymatic synthesis of 2-arachidonoylglycerol, an endogenous ligand for cannabinoid receptors. Tetrahedron Letters 2011, 52 (11), 1149-1150.

 

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