Department of Pharmacology : Miles Hacker

Miles Hacker
Professor of Pharmacology

419-530-1598 Phone
419-530-1909 FAX
WO 4259B
mhacker@utnet.utoledo.edu   

Institutions/Degrees

Research Interests

Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the developed world. Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death world-wide. Our laboratory has focused on the development of drugs to treat both classes of disease. We have developed 3 drugs that are currently being tested clinically for activity in human cancer. We hope that these drugs will be released for general use within the next 2 years. We have many questions remaining on just how these drugs work and are attempting to answer these questions using a variety of cellular and molecular approaches. More recently we have identified a class of chemicals that appear to have excellent activity in the treatment of malaria. Malaria is a forgotten disease because it has little impact on the developed nations but more than 500,000,000 people are infected with malaria each year and of these more than 2,000,000 children under the age of 5 die. If we are successful we will be able to deliver a new safe, effective and inexpensive drug to combat this dreaded disease. Our laboratory is trying to select the best candidate for clinical trials and trying to understand just how these drugs actually kill the malaria parasite. The last area of research for our laboratory is the development of new drugs from microbial sources- commonly referred to as natural products. Why are we interested in natural products? Because more than 50% of all drugs are either natural products or derivatives of natural products. We have a novel source of microbes- the deep caves of the US. We have developed techniques to isolate and grow microbes from caves and are now searching the microbes from drugs to treat cancer and infectious diseases.

Selected Publications

• Branda, R.F., Nigels, E., Lafayette, A., and Hacker, M.P. Nutritional folate status influences the efficacy and toxicity of chemotherapy in rats. Blood 92:2471-6, 1998.
  
  
• Krapcho, A.P., Menta, E., Olivia, A., Hacker, M.P., and Spinelli, S. Synthesis and antitumor evaluation of 2,5-disubstituted-indazolo[4,3-gh]isoquinolin-6(2H)-ones (9-aza-anthrapyrazoles). J Med Chem, 41: 5429-44, 1998.
  
  
• Hazlehurst, L.A., Foley, M.E., Hacker, M.P., and Dalton, W.S. Multiple mechanisms confer drug resistance to mitoxantrone in the human 8226 myeloma cell line. Cancer Res, 59:1021-8, 1999.
  
  
• Freilich, D., Branda, R.F., and Hacker, M.P. Decreased lactic acidosis and anemia after transfusion of o-raffionose cross-linked and polymerized hemoglobin in severe murine malaria. Am J Trop Med Hyg 60:322-328, 1999.
  
  
• Freilich,D., Leach, L., and Hacker, M.P. Oraffinose cross-linked ad polymerized hemoglobin efficacy. J Trop Med Hyg, 63: 280-3, 2000.
  
  
• Shreeve, SM, Shreedharan, SP, Hacker, MP VIP activates G9s) and G(i3) in rat alveolar macrophages. Biochem Biophys Res Comm, 272: 922-8, 2000.
  
  
• Krapcho, AP, Haydar, SN, Truong, Chiott, S, and Hacker, MP Synthesis and anti-tumor activities of 5-methyl-1- and 2-[[2-dimethylaminoethyl]amino]-aza-thiopyrandazoles. Bioorg. Med. Chem Lett, 10: 305-8, 2000
  
  
• Chou, K-M, Krapcho, AP and Hacker, MP Side arm directed intracellular distribution of aza-anthrapyrazoles. Biochem Pharm. 62: 1337-43, 2001
  
  
• Chou K-M, Krapcho, AP and Hacker, MP Synthesis and characterization of affinity labeled anticancer drugs. Biochem Pharm 63: 1143-7, 2002
  
  
• Freilich, D. Hacker, M. Leach, L., Patel, S. and Hebert, J. The hemodynamic effects of diaspirin cross linked hemoglobin in dopamine resistant endotoxic shock in swine. Artif. Cells Blood Subst. 30: 83-89, 2002
  
  
• Huot, A.E. and Hacker, M.P. Nitric Oxide and Environmental Chemicals: A Review. Accepted.