Teaching & Academic Contributions
- Pharm.D. Courses:
- Medicinal Chemistry II
- Medicinal Chemistry III
- Graduate Teaching:
- Advanced Medicinal Chemistry I
- Journal Club, Pharmacodynamics
- Pharmaceutical Analysis
- Advising: 2 master students (TUSP), 1 doctoral student (TUSP)
Research Focus & Activities
Dr. Canney has a broad background in the application of medicinal chemistry approaches to structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies involving novel ligands for pharmacologically relevant receptors. He has prepared and tested a wide variety of heterocyclic compounds as anticonvulsants, muscarinic ligands, sigma ligands and as serotonin receptor ligands. His primary focus in recent years has been SAR studies of heterocyclic compounds as subtype-selective ligands for serotonin and sigma receptors. In collaboration with academic and industry scientists, his ligands have been evaluated in a variety of biological assays and animal models to characterize in vitro and in vivo activity. His work has been supported via NIH, foundation and corporate funded grants and led to a start-up company (Praeventix LLC) pursuing novel treatments for inflammatory disorders, pruritus and substance use disorder.
Collaboration Opportunities:
Dr. Canney welcomes collaborations with any colleagues interested in the areas described above. Our laboratory has hundreds of compounds selective for serotonin and sigma receptor subtypes and we are always looking for collaborators interested in studying them in their area of interest.
Key Interests: drug discovery in the areas of substance use disorder; Alzheimer’s Disease; pruritic, inflammatory bowel disease and convulsions/epilepsy
Select Publications
- Kwon YH, Blass BE, Wang H, Grondin JA, Banskota S, Korzekwa K, Ye M, Gordon JC, Colussi D, Blattner KM, Canney DJ, Khan WI. Novel 5-HT7 receptor antagonists modulate intestinal immune responses and reduce severity of colitis. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2024 Jul 1;327(1):G57-G69.
- Blass, B.E., Gao, R., Blattner, K., Gordon, J., Pippin, D.A., Canney, D.J., Increased rigidity and bioisosteric replacement in the design, synthesis and preliminary evaluation of novel, functionalized 3,3-dialkyl-γ-butyrolactones as sigma-2 ligands. Med Chem Res. 33:287–297 (2024).
- Bhandare RR, Sigalapalli DK, Shaik AB, Canney DJ, Blass BE. Selectivity profile comparison for certain γ-butyrolactone and oxazolidinone-based ligands on a sigma 2 receptor over sigma 1: a molecular docking approach. RSC Adv. 2022 Jul 11;12(31):20096-20109.
Leadership & Service Experience
- Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, TUSP
- Interim Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, TUSP
- Director of Graduate Studies, TUSP
- Interim Director, Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, TUSP
- NIH, Member Study Sections (ZRG1 DKUS N Special Emphasis Panel)
- Review Editor, Frontiers in Chemistry
- Chair & Co-Chair, Faculty Committee for ACPE Accreditation, TUSPI
- Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) reviewer of scientific proposals
- AAAS, Research Competitiveness Program, KACST
- Associate Editor, Life Sciences