Loyola University Chicago

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Faculty & Staff

Billingsley, Kelvin

Title/s:  Associate Professor

Office #:  FH - 209

Phone: 773.508.3255

Email: kbillingsley@luc.edu

External Webpage: http://www.billingsleylab.org

Degrees

Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University, 2009–2013
Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, MIT, 2008
B.S. Chemistry, University of South Carolina, 2002

Research Interests

The foundation of our research is the development of chemical tools and methods with applications that span from medicinal chemistry to radiological sciences. The lab takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining elements of organic synthesis, catalysis and biology, to address problems of clinical importance. We maintain a fundamental interest in designing metal-catalyzed processes to construct structural motifs embodied in molecules of biological and therapeutic significance. Using such chemical technologies, we are also developing molecular probes for hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance imaging to discover and study new questions in cancer.

Selected Publications

Mendoza, M.; Tran, U.; Zhang, G. C.; Leister, J.; To, K.; Malepeai-Tofaeono, T.; Ondrus, A. E.;* Billingsley, K.* "Indolactam Dipeptides as Nanomolar Gli Inhibitors" ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 2022, 13, 1036–1042.

Chen, J.; LaGue, E.; Mendoza, M.; Li, J.; Yang, C.; Hackett, E. P.; Alger, J. R.; DeBerardinis, R. J.; Corbin, I. R.; Billingsley, K. L.*; Park, J. M.* “Profiling Carbohydrate Metabolism in Liver and Hepatocellular Carcinoma with [13C]-Glycerate Probes.” Analysis & Sensing 2021, 1, 196–202.

Hackett, E.; Shah, B. R.; Cheng, B.; LaGue, E.; Vemireddy, V.; Mendoza, M.; Bing, C.; Bachoo, R. M.; Billingsley, K.; Chopra, R.; Park, J. M. “Probing Cerebral Metabolism with Hyperpolarized 13C Imaging after Opening the Blood-Brain Barrier with Focused Ultrasound.” ACS Chem. Neuorosci. 2021, 12, 2820–2828.

Leister, J.; Chao, D.; Billingsley, K.* “Palladium-Catalyzed Prenylation of (Hetero)Aryl Boronic Acids.” Tetrahedron Lett. 2021, 66, 152800.

Tran, U.; Zhang, G.; Eom, R.; Billingsley, K.*; Ondrus, A.* “Small Molecule Intervention in a Protein Kinase C - Gli Transcription Factor Axis.” ACS Chem. Bio. 2020, 15, 1321–1327.

Mendoza, M.; Eom, R.; Salas, C.; Haynes-Smith, J.; Billingsley, K.* “The Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Indolactam Alkaloids.” Synthesis 2019, 51, 4443–4451.

Mendoza, M.; Rao, N.; Tran, U.; Castaneda, C.; Billingsley, K.* “Total Synthesis of (-)-Indolactam I.” Tetrahedron 2019, 75, 4337–4342.

Park, J. M.;* Wu, M.; Datta, K.; Liu, S.-C.; Castillo, A.; Lough, H.; Spielman, D. M.;* Billingsley, K.* “Hyperpolarized Sodium [1-13C]-Glycerate as a Probe for Assessing Glycolysis In Vivo.” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 6629–6634.