Dr. Richard Slayden

<< Back to Faculty

Center for Environmental Medicine
1681 Campus Delivery
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
Phone: (970) 491-8635
Email: CEM@colostate.edu

Degrees

B.S., Colorado State University
Ph.D., Colorado State University

Dr. Slayden is a Faculty Affiliate in the Center for Environmental Medicine and an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology.

Research Interests

Dr. Slayden’s laboratory emphasizes the study of bacterial differentiation into distinct cellular populations. The premise is that although bacteria are genetically clonal they are phenotypically differentiated. The benefit to the bacteria is optimization of population survival by differentiation into distinct cell types.

These cell types may include:
  1. actively growing cells
  2. metabolically dormant
  3. hyper-mutable
  4. altruistically suicidal

The presence of these four phenotypically activated populations would allow the bacterial population the adaptation characteristics required to actively infect and evade host defenses. In addition a major effort in the laboratory is the development of novel post-genomic technologies.

Recent Publications

  • Christopher W. am Ende, Susan E. Knudson, Nina Liu, James Childs, Todd J. Sullivan, Melissa Boyne, Hua Xu, Dennis L. Knudson, Francis Johnson, Charles A. Peloquin, Richard A. Slayden and Peter J. Tonge (2008) Synthesis and in vitro activity of B-ring modified diaryl ether InhA inhibitors: Anti-mycobacterial agents with improved Lipinski parameters. Bioorganic Medicinal Chemistry Letters. 18:3029-3033
  • Laurel Respicio, Pravin A. Nair, Qing Huang, Burcu Anil, Sylvia Tracz, James J. Truglio, Caroline Kisker, Daniel P. Raleigh, Iwao Ojima, Dennis L. Knudson, Peter J. Tonge and Richard A. Slayden (2008) Characterizing Septum Inhibition in Mycobacterium tuberculosis for Novel Drug Discovery. Tuberculosis (In press; doi:10.1016/j.tube.2008.03.001).
  • Melissa E. Boyne, Todd J. Sullivan, Christopher W. amEnde, Hao Lu, Veronica Gruppo, Darragh Heaslip, Anita Amin, Delphi Chatterjee, Anne Lenaerts, Peter J. Tonge and Richard A. Slayden. (2007) Targeting fatty acid biosynthesis for the development of novel chemotherapeutics against Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Evaluation of A-ring modified diphenyl ethers as high affinity InhA inhibitors. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 51(10):3562-67.
  • Peter J. Tonge, Caroline Kisker and Richard A. Slayden (2007) Development of Modern InhA Inhibitors to Combat Drug Resistant Strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. 7(5):489-98.
  • Qing huang, Peter J. Tonge, Richard A. Slayden Teruo Kirikae and Iwao Ojima. (2007) FtsZ: A Novel Target for Tuberculosis Drug Discovery. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. 7(5):527-43.
  • Groathouse, N. A., Amin, A., Marques, M. A., Spencer, J. S., Gelber, R., Knudson, D. L., Belisle, J. T., Brennan, P. J., Slayden, R. A. (2006) Use of protein microarrays to define the humoral immune response in leprosy patients and identification of disease-state-specific antigenic profiles. Infect. Immun. 74(11):6458-66.
  • Sartain, M. J., Slayden, R. A., Singh, K. K., Laal, S., Belisle, J. T. (2006) Disease state differentiation and identification of tuberculosis biomarkers via native antigen array profiling. Mol Cell Proteomics. 5(11):2102-2113.
  • Slayden, R. A., Knudson, D. L., Belisle, J. T. (2006) Identification of cell cycle regulators in Mycobacterium tuberculosis by inhibition of septum formation and global transcriptional analysis. Microbiology. 152:1789-97.
  • Groathouse, N. A., Brown, S. E., Knudson, D. L., Brennan, P. J., Slayden, R. A. (2006) Isothermal amplification and molecular typing of the obligate intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium leprae isolated from tissues of unknown origin. J. Clin. Microbiol. 44(4):1502-8.
  • Huang, Q., Kirikae, F., Kirikae, T., Pepe, A., Amin, A., Respicio, L., Slayden, R. A., Tonge, P. J. Ojima, I. (2006) Targeting FtsZ for antituberculosis drug discovery: noncytotoxic taxanes as novel antituberculosis agents. J Med Chem. 49(2):463-6.
  • Todd J. Sullivan, James J. Truglio, Melissa E. Boyne, Polina Novichenok, Xujie Zhang, Christopher F. Stratton, Huei-Jiun Li, Tejinder Kaur, Amol Amin, Francis Johnson, Richard A. Slayden, Caroline Kisker, Peter J. Tonge (2006) High Affinity InhA Inhibitors with Activity against Drug-Resistant Strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ACS Chem. Biol. 1 (1), 43-53.
  • Richard Lee, Marina Protopopova, Emma Crooks, Richard A. Slayden, Clifton E. Barry 3rd (2003) Combinatorial lead optimization of [1,2]-diamines based on ethambutol as potential antituberculosis preclinical candidates. Journal of Combichem 5(2):172-87.
  • Phetsuksiri B, Jackson M, Scherman H, McNeil M, Besra GS, Baulard AR, Slayden RA, DeBarber AE, Barry CE 3rd, Baird MS, Crick DC, Brennan PJ. (2003) Unique mechanism of action of the thiourea drug isoxyl on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J Biol Chem. 278(52): 53123-30.
  • Richard A. Slayden and Clifton E. Barry, 3rd (2002) The role of KasA and KasB in the Biosynthesis of Meromycolic Acids in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Isoniazid Resistance. Tuberculosis 82 (4/5):149-60.