Owen McDougal
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
owenmcdougal@boisestate.edu
SN 323
208-426-3964

Professional Preparation
     SUNY Morrisville, Morrisville, NY Chemistry A.S. 1990
     SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY Chemistry B.S. 1992
     University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT Chemistry Ph.D. 1998

Experience and Affiliations

6/06 – present Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Boise State University.
6/06 – present Executive Committee, AAASPD.
9/02 – 6/06 Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Southern Oregon University.
9/05 – 6/06 Second Vice President, Southern Oregon Chapter of Sigma Xi; research honor society.
5/05 – 8/05 Instructor and Fellow, in Organic and Bioorganic Chemistry, University of Utah, SLC, UT.
6/04 – 9/04 Instructor and Fellow in Organic Chemistry and Green Organic Chemistry Laboratories, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.
9/04 - 5/05 University of Utah, Visiting Associate Professor of Chemistry, sabbatical appointment, SLC, UT.
8/03 - 9/03 Instructor and Fellow in Organic Chemistry, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.
8/02 - 9/02 Instructor and Fellow in Organic Chemistry, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.
9/98 – 6/02 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR.
9/01 – present Chemistry Division Chair and Council member, AAASPD.
6/01 - 8/01 Instructor and Fellow in Biochemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
9/92 - 5/93 Instructor and Fellow in General and Organic Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
8/91 - 5/92 Research Fellow in Organic Chemistry, SUNY at Oswego, Oswego, NY.
6/91 - 8/91 Undergraduate Research Fellow in Organometallic Chemistry, University of Utah, SLC, UT.
6/90 - 8/90 Laboratory Technician, Galson Laboratories, East Syracuse, NY, internship position.

Teaching

My background and area of greatest interest is in the instruction of Organic Spectroscopy. In this capacity, I have worked toward a systematic approach to introduce NMR, IR, and GC-MS instrumentation and to provide students with the opportunity to become very proficient in the analysis of data acquired from this instrumentation. I have used this instrumentation for undergraduate curriculum development in both Organic Spectroscopy and Biomolecular NMR courses. I can now train students at the sophomore level the basics of organic compound structure elucidation by NMR, IR, and GC-MS. I have been fortunate to be able to offer both Advanced Biomolecular NMR Courses and Advanced Organic NMR spectroscopy courses designed to prepare students for graduate studies by presenting them material appropriate at the graduate level. I look forward to taking students from these classes and continue working with them on externally funded research projects that follow this training. I have been very successful in curriculum development with undergraduates that has been published and presented at national conferences. A recent NSF CCLI grant entitled, “OSpec Web: An Online Educational Resource to Supplement the Instruction of Organic Spectroscopy”, was recently submitted for $147,828. This grant will fund the continued development of the web site: http://ospecweb.boisestate.edu.

Research

From Neurotoxins to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Drugs

Current research in the McDougal laboratory is focused on neurotoxins isolated from snails of the genus Conus. The objective of this research is to design, synthesize, and evaluate the efficacy of potent and selective antagonists of presynaptic neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Native alpha-conotoxin MII is a potent but non selective antagonist of alph6beta2 and alpha3beta2 subunits of neuronal but not muscle type nAChRs. The E11A analogue of alpha-conotoxin MII is both potent and shows a 50-fold preference for binding to the alpha6beta2 nAChR subunit pair compared to the alpha3beta2 subunit combination. The design of selective antagonists will be based on a comparison of the structure of the potent but non selective alpha-conotoxin MII versus that of the potent and somewhat selective E11A analogue of alpha-conotoxin MII. The purpose is to understand the reason why the E11A analogue shows greater selectivity than the native alpha-conotoxin MII and design, synthesize, and test novel peptides that exhibit enhanced efficacy and selectivity. The significance of this work is that the alpha6beta2 subunits in presynaptic neuronal nAChRs have been found to control the release of dopamine in striatial cells of mice. The potential to develop therapies for diseases caused by improper dopamine levels in the brain including schizophrenia, Tourette’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s is thus a possible outcome. A crystal structure of a conotoxin bound to the subunit interfaces present in the acetylcholine binding protein is shown to the right.

There are three components of the research project that students could be involved in. First, the design of novel peptides is based on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) derived structures of known peptides. An NMR structure for the E11A peptide needs to be determined. This will require a student to gain significant experience in data acquisition, analysis, and constraint set generation. Structures will be generated based on NMR constraints using molecular mechanics software. A comparison of structure characteristics between the E11A analogue and native alpha conotoxin MII will be required to rationally design novel peptides. Secondly, the proposed peptides need to be synthesized. This is done by solid phase synthetic strategies in a laboratory that has the instrumentation required. A student working on this aspect of the project will take synthetic peptide attached to a solid support resin, perform sequential deprotection of cysteine amino acids and oxidize the peptide to form the correct arrangement of cystine bridges. At each step along the way, reverse phase liquid chromatograhy (RPLC) separation is required. Students here gain extensive experience in peptide folding and purification. The third aspect of this project is the use of an electrophysiology patch clamp system to explore antagonist activity. The system to be used is frog eggs (Xenopus oocytes) that are heterogeneously expressed with alpha6beta2 and alpha3beta2 subunits of nAChRs on the surface. Students will monitor the opening and closing of the ligand gated ion channel in the presence and absence of synthetic peptide.

Combustion Studies of Fuel Briquettes from Junk Mail and Yard Waste
The project presented here is to take existing technology that has been applied to third world countries as an alternative to deforestation and improve, mechanize and apply the concept to the US market. In a country like Malawi where, on the order of 76% of all wood cut is used for cooking and heating, the production of fuel briquettes from renewable biomass has made a significant difference. In the United States, the potential exists to appreciably affect the energy usage of a large number of American households. The solution to the problem of junk mail and yard waste disposal is more complicated in some ways because there is a much greater need to remove the labor intensive component of the briquette making process, which is an acceptable aspect of the manual process utilized in third world countries.

The goal of this project is to develop a mechanized briquette maker that will convert junk mail and yard waste into compact fuel briquettes suitable for use in a standard fireplace, barbeque grill, or backyard deck warmer. The unit to be developed must be energy efficient, durable, affordable, and readily available to the public. The briquettes produced must combust thoroughly, cleanly, and be formed in a way that generates high thermal output. To make this a reality, much time and effort has already been expended on prototype design for the mechanized unit and some research has been conducted on the combustion characteristics of the resultant briquettes. Students would be involved in making briquettes, studying the combustion characteristics compared to traditional fuel sources, quantitate gaseous and particulate emissions, and assisting with the design and development of an automated briquette press.

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

1.) “A Practical Method for the Display of High Resolution One- and Two-Dimensional NMR Spectra on the World Wide Web” Graf, C. and McDougal, O. The Chemical Educator (submitted April 24, 2007).

2.) “Definition of the M-Conotoxin Superfamily: Characterization of Novel Peptides from Molluscivorous Conus Venoms” Corpuz, G. P., Jacobsen, R. B., Jimenez, E. C., Watkins, M., Walker, C., Colledge, C., Garrett, J. E., McDougal, O., Li, W., Gray, W. R., Hillyard, D. R., Rivier, J., McIntosh, J. M., Cruz, L. J., and Olivera, B. M. Biochemistry 2005,44, 8176-8186.

3.) “Three-Dimensional Structure of Mini-M Conotoxin mr3a” McDougal, O. and Poulter, C. D. Biochemistry 2004, 43, 425-429.

4.) “A Pedagogical Approach to the Instruction of Organic Spectroscopy” *Buser, J. and McDougal, O. The Chemical Educator 2004, Vol. 9, Issue 1, 1-4.

5.) “Spectroscopic Data Management for the Time-Strapped Educator” *Hart, A. and McDougal, O. The Chemical Educator 2004, Vol. 9, Issue 6, 374-377.

6.) “Fuel Briquettes Out of Junk Mail and Yard Wastes” *Holstein, S., Stanley, R., and McDougal, O. Journal of Chemical Innovation, 2001, 31, 21-28.

7.) Owen McDougal. Chapter 17, “Biochemistry”. A web chapter to accompany, Basic Concepts of Chemistry, Seventh Edition by L. Jack Malone, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2003).

8.) Owen McDougal, Study Guide to Accompany Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry, First Edition by Mel Armold, Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, FL (2000).