Michael Gutierrez

Education: 

  • Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, 2013
  • M.S., Organic Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, 2012
  • B.S., Chemistry, La Sierra University, 2003

Principal Research Interests

I'm involved in synthesizing new organic molecules based on (but slightly different than) the structure of compounds found in nature.  Making these new compounds and modifying their structures in various ways could possibly lead to augmented or even new pharmaceutical applications. My research focuses on designing synthetic pathways for cannabinoid analogues that have the potential to act as therapeutic agents (not just symptomatic treatment) for a wide variety of disorders ranging from cancer, various central nervous system (CNS) disorders, stroke, and other diseases.  One such target in my group is the inhibition of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-⍺) which has been implicated in numerous disorders but more recently amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Chemistry Research Area: 

  • Organic Synthesis
  • Natural Product Derivative Synthesis
  • Computational Chemistry
  • Drug Re-discovery
Email: mgutierr@lasierra.edu
Phone: 951-785-2150
Office: PH 232

Representative Publications

  1. Chang, C.E., Rizi, A., Marsella, M., and Gutierrez, M. Homology Modeling of a Cannabinoid Receptor: Discovery of Cannabinoid Analogues for Therapeutic Use. In Methods in Molecular Biology; 2012;819:595-613.
  2. Gutierrez, M. (2013). Synthesis and Computational Binding Studies of Cannabinoid Analogues; Simple Computational Methods of Predicting Asymmetric Reactions. (Doctoral Dissertation). ProQuest Dissertaions and Theses.