Rajeev Muthyala, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, CLI
Specialty: Chemistry
Phone: 507-258-8207
Fax: 507-258-8066
Office: Broadway Hall
Email: muthy004@umn.edu

Education

Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Hawaii, 1998
M.Sc., Chemistry, Osmania University, 1988
B.Sc., Chemistry and Mathematics, Osmania University, 1986

Background

I finished my undergraduate education in India and obtained a Ph.D degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaii. After postdoctoral stints at the Scripps Research Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I started my independent career at Queens College of the City University of New York in Sept. 2003. In Dec. 2008, I said aloha to New York City and moved to Rochester to be part of UMR.

Teaching and Research

Before moving to UMR, I taught courses in organic chemistry at various levels – Ph.D, masters and undergraduate – ranging from sophomore organic chemistry to spectroscopic methods in structure elucidation and advanced organic chemistry. Since joining UMR, I have developed modules for a unique “Organic First” curriculum which began in Fall 2009. The idea of introducing students to organic chemistry first, rather than general chemistry is relatively new, and I am proud to say that UMR is part of a select group of institutions implementing this approach. The fun part of developing the Organic Chemistry modules has been the interactions with faculty from other disciplines. Although I collaborated extensively with biologists in my research, I have never interacted professionally with sociologists or psychologists. Learning how chemistry impacts the social sciences and the humanities and vice versa has been an eye opening experience for me. While my research interests in the area of learning are still evolving, I am most interested in the assessment of inter-disciplinary curricula in learning communities.

My chemistry research interests are in the area of organicsupramolecular chemistry (see below for representative publications). My primary focus is in the development of synthetic molecular machines for ion transport. I am also interested in the development of chromogenic receptors for the detection of environmental pollutants.

Representative Publications from Independent Work

Carbonyl Groups as Molecular Valves to Regulate Chloride Binding to Squaramides. V. Ramalingam, M. E. Domaradzki, S. Jang and R. S. Muthyala. Organic Letters 2008, 10, 3315-3318.

Copper-Mediated Synthesis of Tertiary Diaryl Squaramides. V. Ramalingam, N. Bhagirath and R. S. Muthyala. J. Org. Chem. 2007, 72, 3976-3979

The Use of Squaric Acid as a Scaffold for Cofacial Phenyl Rings. R. S. Muthyala, G. Subramaniam, L., Todaro. Organic Letters 2004, 6, 4663-4665.

Representative Publications from Doctoral and Postdoctoral work 

Equol, a Natural Estrogenic Metabolite from Soy Isoflavones: Convenient Preparation and Resolution of R- and S-Equols and Their Differing Binding and Biological Activity Through Estrogen Receptors Alpha and Beta. R. S. Muthyala, Y. H. Ju, S. Sheng, L. D. Williams, D. R. Doerge, B. S. Katzenellenbogen, W. G. Helferich, and J. A. Katzenellenbogen. Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2004, 12, 1559-1567.

Interaction of Exogenous Endocrine Active Substances with Nuclear Receptors. J. A. Katzenellenbogen and R. S. Muthyala. Pure and Applied Chem. 2003, 75, 2397-2403.

Bridged Bicyclic Cores Containing a 1,1-Diarylethylene Motif are High Affinity Subtype-Selective Ligands for the Estrogen Receptor. R. S. Muthyala, S. Sheng, K. E. Carlson, B. S. Katzenellenbogen and J. A. Katzenellenbogen. J. Med. Chem. 2003, 46, 1589-1602.

Correlation of Substituent Effects and Energy Levels of the Two Lowest Excited States of the Azulenic Chromophore. R. S. H. Liu, R. S. Muthyala, X.-S. Wang, A. E. Asato, P. Wang and C. Ye., Organic Letters, 2000, 2, 269-272.