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Department of Chemistry

Ned Porter

Stevenson Professor Emeritus
Research Professor

Dr. Porter is not currently accepting graduate students. 

Our research interests have focused primarily on the reactions of organic compounds, particularly those important in biology, with molecular oxygen. Polyunsaturated fatty acids and esters are vulnerable to reaction with molecular oxygen by free radical processes and the mechanisms of those reactions and their inhibition has been our principal area of enquiry. More recently, we discovered that one of the compounds in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway, 7-dehydro-cholesterol, is one of the most susceptible lipids in Nature to its free radical reactions with oxygen. This discovery has important implications in a variety of pathologies as well as in the response to oxidative stresses in Nature. Another recent line of enquiry involves the oxidative free radical reactions of cannabinoids that occurs during vaping.

 

Specializations

Organic, Chemical Biology

Representative Publications

orcid.org/0000-0002-4447-7690

Love, CA.; Kim, HH.; Tallman, KA; Clapp, PW.; Porter, NA.; Jaspers, I. Vaping Induced Cannabidiol (CBD) Oxidation Product CBD Quinone Forms Protein Adducts with KEAP1 and Activates KEAP1-Nrf2 Genes Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2023, 36, 565−569.

 

Korade, Z.; Tallman, K. A.; Kim, HH.; Genaro-Mattos, T. C.; Pattnaik, A.; Mirnics, K.; Pattnaik, AK.; Porter, NA. Dose–Response Effects of 7-Dehydrocholesterol Reductase Inhibitors on Sterol Profiles and Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Replication. ACS Pharmacol. Transl. Sci. 2022, 5, 11, 1086–1096.

 

Porter, N. A.; Xu, L.; Pratt, D. A. Reactive Sterol Electrophiles: Mechanisms of Formation and Reactions with Proteins and Amino Acid Nucleophiles. Chemistry 2020, 2, 390−417.

 

Duffney PF, Kim HH, Porter NA, Jaspers I. Ozone-derived oxysterols impair lung macrophage phagocytosis via adduction of some phagocytosis receptors. J Biol Chem. 2020, 295, 12727-12738. 

 

Wages, P. A.; Joshi, P.; Tallman, K. A.; Kim, HH.; Bowman, A. B.; Porter, N. A. 

Screening ToxCast™ for chemicals that affect cholesterol biosynthesis: studies in cell culture and human induced pluripotent stem cell–derived neuroprogenitors. Environmental Health Perspectives 2020, 128 (1).