Dr. Ron Hill's Research Interests

Synthetic organic chemistry

Past efforts have been directed towards making new (or commercially unavailable) compounds - most recently including certain xenobiotic biotransformation products (i.e., "metabolites"), novel amino acids and their derivatives, and various heterocycles - so that their biological activities can be studied. Heavy emphasis has also been placed on the synthesis of novel types of bioprecursors for improved delivery or targeting of medicinal substances to the brain. My laboratory and our institutional infrastructure is well equipped for state-of-the-art synthetic chemistry projects.

Applied analytical/bioanalytical chemistry

Our work has included the development and application of analytical methods, mainly by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with various detection methods, and now including multi-stage mass spectroscopic (MSn) for:

1. Determining concentrations of bioprecursors, parent pharmacological agents ("parent drug"), or biotransformation products in complex biological matrices such as the brain, blood, tissues, or excreta.
2. The characterization of solution equilibria and chemical degradation pathways. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, as well as other spectroscopic methods, are brought to bear as required for these efforts.