MS Thesis Defense by Harsh Bawa
CCB-341
Rachel White
508-999-8232/508-999-8587
rwhite@umassd.edu
Advisor: Professor David Manke
Committee Members: Professor Catherine Neto and Professor Shuowei Cai
Abstract: Tryptamine natural products, particularly serotonin, play important physiological roles and function as a neurotransmitter in mediating mood in humans through their interactions with serotonin receptors, which are distributed throughout the central and
peripheral nervous systems. While serotonin controls mood in the central nervous system, a vast majority of it is found in peripheral locations. There are many tryptamine natural products found in nature, including a variety of compounds that are maximally alkylated to generate quaternary tryptamines, which, due to their charged nature, are unlikely to cross the blood-brain barrier. What (if any) role do these peripherally restricted compounds play?
In this research work, novel analogues of quaternary tryptammonium salts are synthesized and characterized using NMR and single-crystal X-ray crystallography to advance the understanding of their impact.