Fatima Rivas, PhD

Research Associate, St. Jude Faculty

Departments

Chemical Biology & Therapeutics

Contact Information

Fatima Rivas, PhD
Chemical Biology & Therapeutics
MS 1000, Room E9056
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
262 Danny Thomas Place
Memphis, TN 38105-3678
Email: fatima.rivas@stjude.org
Phone: (901) 595-6504
FAX: (901) 595-5715

Education

BS – California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California
MS – University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California
PhD – University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California

Honors & Awards

• 2012  Keystone Symposia Early Career Investigator Travel Award
• 2011  Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority Fellowship
• 2009-2010  Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology Fellowship
• 2006-2010  IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California San Diego, and San Diego State University
• 2002-2006  The Institute on Teaching and Mentoring Southern Regional Education Board/NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Scholar Program Fellowship
• 2002-2006  Ruth L. Kischstein National Research Service Award Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowship

Research Interests

• Target oriented chemical synthesis of novel natural products from terrestrial plants, guided by certain tropical folk medicine (such as the Erythrina alkaloids and the Trichothecenes).
• Upon the development of flexible and efficient synthetic approaches, rational-designed libraries will be synthesized for biological screening, and facilitate the development of therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer and metabolic syndrome-related disorders.
• Isolation and structure elucidation of natural products of medicinal interest.

Research Lab

Selected Publications

Mitachi K, Salinas YG, Connelly M, Jensen N, Ling T, Rivas F. Synthesis and structure-activity relationship of disubstituted benzamides as a novel class of antimalarial agents. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Lett 22:4536-4539, 2012.

Nicolaou KC, Ellery SP, Rivas F, Saye K, Rogers E, Workinger TJ, Schallenberger M, Tawatao T, Montero A, Hessell A, Romesberg F, Carson D, Burton D. Synthesis and biological evaluation of 2’,4’- and 3’,4’-bridged nucleoside analogues. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry 19:5648–5669, 2011.

Nicolaou KC, Aversa, RJ, Jin J, Rivas F. Synthesis of the ABCDEFG ring system of Maitotoxin. J Am Chem Soc 132:6855-6861, 2010.

Nicolaou KC, Frederick M, Burtoloso A, Denton R, Rivas F, Cole K, Aversa RJ, Gibe R, Umezawa T, Suzuki T. Chemical synthesis of the GHIJKLMNO ring system of Maitotoxin. J Am Chem Soc 130:7466-7476, 2008.

Rivas F, Ghosh S, Theodorakis EA. Synthetic studies toward the Zoanthamine alkaloids: synthesis of the fully functionalized BC ring motif. Tetrahedron Lett 46:5281-5284, 2005.

Gonzalez MA, Ghosh S, Rivas F, Fischer D, Theodorakis EA. Synthesis of ( ) - and (-)-Isocarvone. Tetrahedron Lett 45:5039-5041, 2004.

Ghosh S, Rivas F, Fischer D, Gonzalez MA, Theodorakis EA. Stereoselective synthesis of the ABC ring system of Norzoanthamine. Organic Lett 6(6):941-944, 2004.

Ling T, Rivas F, Theodorakis EA. Stereoselective synthesis of the fully functionalized core fragment of Terpentecin. Tetrahedron Lett 43:9019-9022, 2002.

Last updated: February 2013