Yap Beow Keat

Discipline

Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Courses taught

• FAR212/2: Principles of Medicinal Chemistry
• FAR244/3: Basic Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry
• FAR341/4: Respiratory, Renal, Blood System and Therapy
• FAR342/3: Cardiovascular System and Therapy (Coordinator)
• FAR343/2: Gastrointestinal System and Therapy

Research Interest

Expertise

• Computational Chemistry: Homology modelling, molecular dynamics simulations, docking, de novo drug design (small molecules, cyclic peptides) (SYBYL-X, Discovery Studio, Maestro, GROMACS, AutoDock, Glide)
• Biochemistry: Protein expression (in bacterial cell E.coli), purification (affinity chromatography, FPLC) and characterisation (SDS-PAGE, Western Blot, NMR, LC-MS)
• Medicinal chemistry: Synthesis (Fmoc-chemistry, solid-phase), purifications (RP-HPLC) and characterisations of peptides, cyclic peptides and peptidomimetics (LC-MS, NMR).
• Drug discovery: 1D and 2D-NMR methods in fragment-based drug discovery, characterisation of protein-ligand binding interactions (NMR, surface plasmon resonance)

Consultation

NA

Selected Publication

1. Harjani, J. R., Yap, B. K., Leung, E. W., Lucke, A., Nicholson, S. E., Scanlon, M. J., Chalmers, D. K., Thompson, P. E., Norton, R.S., and Baell, J. B. (2016) Design, synthesis, and characterization of cyclic peptidomimetics of the inducible nitric oxide synthase binding epitope that disrupt the protein-protein interaction involving SPRY domain-containing suppressor of cytokine signaling box protein (SPSB) 2 and inducible nitric oxide synthase, J. Med. Chem. 59, 5799-5809.

2. Harjani, J. R., Yap, B. K., Norton, R. S. and Baell, J. B. (2016) An alternative approach to the synthesis of peptides containing a cystathionine bridge, Tetrahedron 72, 3256-3261.

3. Yap, B. K., Harjani, J. R., Leung, E. W., Nicholson, S. E., Scanlon, M. J., Chalmers, D. K., Thompson, P. E., Baell, J. B., and Norton, R. S. (2016) Redox-stable cyclic peptide inhibitors of the SPSB2-iNOS interaction, FEBS Lett. 590, 696-704.

4. Yap, B. K., Leung, E. W., Yagi, H., Galea, C. A., Chhabra, S., Chalmers, D. K., Nicholson, S. E., Thompson, P. E., and Norton, R. S. (2014) A potent cyclic peptide targeting SPSB2 protein as a potential anti-infective agent, J. Med. Chem. 57, 7006-7015.

5. Munusamy, V., Yap, B. K., Buckle, M. J. C., Doughty, S. W. and Chung, L. Y. (2013) Structure-based identification of aporphines with selective 5-HT2A receptor-binding activity. Chem. Biol. Drug Des. 81, 250–256.

6. Yap, B. K., Buckle, M. J. C. and Doughty, S. W. (2012) Homology modeling of the human 5-HT1A, 5-HT2A, D1, and D2 receptors: model refinement with molecular dynamics simulations and docking evaluation. J. Mol. Model. 18, 3639-3655.

Current Research

NA 

Patents

1. Gam, L. H., Mohamad, Z. S. Z., and Yap, B. K. (2010) A method to differentiate gelatin capsule of the porcine source from the bovine source, World Intellectual Property Organization, WO 2010131940 A1