Hevener Laboratory, University of Tennessee - College of Pharmacy

09/29/2026

Congratulations to my senior grad student, Kristiana, on the successful defense of her dissertation and completion of her PhD today. We will miss her a lot and wish her the best at her future position as a fellow at the FDA.

08/24/2026

Congrats to my postdoc, Manjula, on being awarded a travel scholarship to present our research at

05/27/2026

Very proud of my senior graduate student, Kristiana Avad, for being named the Duane Miller Graduate Student Awardee today. Duane Miller was a member of my thesis committee and mentor when I was a graduate student, so this is particularly gratifying.

05/27/2026

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsbiomedchemau.5c00199

Fusobacterium nucleatum is a Gram-negative anaerobic bacterium ubiquitous in the oral cavity and increasingly recognized for its involvement in diverse clinical conditions, including periodontal disease, inflammatory bowel disease, premature birth, and several forms of cancer. These associations hig...

11/14/2025

Congratulations to Kristiana and Osama (grad student, postdoc) on their co-authored manuscript on F. nucleatum FabK biochemical and structural analysis. This enzyme is a narrow-spectrum antibacterial target for treatment of periodontal disease while avoiding oral microbiome disruption. Special thanks to our collaborators at Texas A&M and University of Hawaii at Hilo for their contributions, and to several PharmD students who assisted in the studies and were listed as contributing authors. Well done!

06/12/2025

Excellent perspective article on target engagement in this issue of J Med Chem.

In target-based drug discovery, quantification of target engagement is required to build structure–activity relationships and develop a potent clinical candidate. Target engagement data also provides evidence of a drug’s mechanism of action (MoA) which although is not required for approval, can ...

05/15/2025

Congratulations to the Palmer Lab at University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy on their recent publication in Cell Chemical Biology. We were happy to be a part of this exciting research!

Fungal infections affect millions of people each year, and the current antifungal armament is inadequate. Regan et al. have demonstrated that pantothenate kinase (PanK) is a valid target for antifungal development. In addition, they report a fungal-selective PanK inhibitor with in vivo antifungal ac...

03/26/2025

02/03/2025

Discover the world’s best science and medicine | Nature.com

01/22/2025

Thanks, Kristiana!

“Empowering, supportive, and passionate,” is how University of Tennessee Health Science Center PhD candidate Kristiana Avad described her marvelous mentor, U...