Harrison College of Pharmacy

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Research Interests

My primary training is in the area of medicinal chemistry with specialties in organic synthesis, molecular modeling and NMR. During my career I have been involved in the design and synthesis of DNA alkylators, Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors, Ergot alkaloids and numerous other bio-molecules.

I have been involved in the design, synthesis and analysis of cannabinoids for the last several years. This has been done in collaboration with the other members of the Medicinal Chemistry Division within the Department of Drug Discovery and Development at Auburn University and supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). This work has been to support the DOJs mission in forensic chemistry but has also led to an expansion of the known SAR of cannabinoids. We are currently developing new CB2 agonists as an outgrowth of this work that will hopefully be useful as analgesics.

Selected Publications

• Jiansheng Huang, Amber Milton, Robert D. Arnold, Forrest Smith, Jennifer R. Panizzi and Peter Panizzi* Methods of Measuring Myeloperoxidase Activity Toward Accessing Inhibitor Efficacy in Living Systems,  Journal of Leukocyte Biology, 2016, 99, 541.
• Karim M Abdel-Hay; Jack DeRuiter; Forrest T Smith, Amsha S Alsegiani ; Amber Thaxton-Weissenfluh, GC-MS Analysis of the Six Regioisomeric Dimethoxybenzoyl-1-pentylindoles: Isomeric Cannabinoid Substances, Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 2016, 125, 360.
• Younis Abiedalla, Jack DeRuiter, Forrest Smith and C. Randall Clark, Differentiation of the six dimethoxypyrovalerone regioisomers: GC-MS, GC-MS/MS and GC-IR, Talanta, 2017, 171, 220.
• Jack DeRuiter, Amber Thaxton-Weissenfluh, Forrest Smith and C. Randall Clark. Structure–Activity Relationship Studies for the Six Regioisomeric 1-n-Pentyl-3-(dimethoxybenzoyl)indoles at Cannabinoid 1 and 2 Receptors,” Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacology, 2017, 3, 113
• Jack DeRuiter, Amber Thaxton-Weissenfluh, Forrest Smith and C. Randall Clark,  Analytical studies on the 2-naphthoyl substituted-1- n -pentylindoles: Regioisomeric Synthetic Cannabinoids, Journal of Chromatography B, 2018, 1077-1078, 77.
• Lewis W. Smith, Younis Abiedalla, Jack DeRuiter, Amber Thaxton-Weissenfluh, Forrest Smith and C. Randall Clark. Structure–Activity Correlation of vapor phase infrared spectra and regioisomeric structure in synthetic cannabinoids, Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 2018, 375
• Tarek S. Belal, Jack DeRuiter, Amber Thaxton-Weissenfluh, Forrest Smith and C. Randall Clark, Differentiation of methylated indole ring regioisomers of JWH-007: GC–MS and GC–IR studies, 2018, 7, 1.
• Hongjie  Wang, Yangmei  Li,  Forrest  Smith,  Madepalli  Lakshmana, Dmitriy Minond,  Discovery of novel HDAC inhibitor using HTS assays based on AlphaLISA and HDAC-Glo™ 2 technologies, EMS Pharmacology Journal. 2017, 001, 1.
• Jack DeRuiter, Forrest Smith, Younis Abiedalla, Logan Neel and C. Randall Clark, “GC-MS and GC-IR Analysis of Regioisomeric Cannabinoids Related to 1-(5-fluoropentyl)-3-(1-naphthoyl)-indole,” Journal of Forensic Chemistry, 2018, 10, 48.
• Improved Ocular Delivery of Nepafenac by Cyclodextrin Complexation, Shelly, Haley; Grant, Makenzie; Smith, Forrest T.; Abaraca, Eva M.; Babu, R. Jayachandra, AAPS Pharmaceutical Science Technology, 2018, 10, 2554.
• Randall Clark, Jack DeRuiter, Forrest Smith, Logan Neel, Younis Abiedalla, Lewis Smith, Karim Abdel-Hay, Tarek Belal, Amber Weissenfluh, “Spectroscopic Differentiation and Chromatographic Separation of Regioisomeric Indole Aldehydes: Synthetic Cannabinoids Precursors, Forensic  Chemistry, 2019,12, 78.
• Haley Shelley, Manjusha Annaji, Forrest T. Smith, Jaychandra Babu, Difluprednate-Hydroxypropyl-β-Cyclodextrin based Ophthalmic Solution for Improved Delivery in Porcine Eyes, submitted to Experimental Eye Research
• K Reeta Vijayarani, Manoj Govindarajulu, Sindhu Ramesh, Mohammed Majrashi, Mansour Alturki, Ayaka Fujihashi, Mohammed Almaghrabi, N Kirubakaran, Jayachandra Ramapuram, Jun Ren, Forrest Smith, Timothy Moore, Muralikrishnan DhanasekaranEnhanced Bioavailability of Boswellic Acid by Piper longum: A Computational and Pharmacokinetic Validation for Possible Cardioprotective Benefits, Frontiers in Pharmacology, section Ethnopharmacology, 2020.
• Richard L Cullum, Ph.D.; Lauren M Lucas; Jared I Senfeld; John T Piazza; Logan T Neel; Kanupriya Whig; Ling Zhai; Mackenzie H Harris; Cristina C Rael; Darby C Taylor; Laura J Cook; David P Kaufmann; Christopher P Mill; Megan A Jacobi; Forrest T Smith; Mark Suto; Robert Bostwick; Ram B Gupta; Allan E David; David J RieseDevelopment and application of high-throughput screens for the discovery of compounds that disrupt ErbB4 signaling: Candidate cancer therapeutics
  Dr. David Riese, PLOS ONE, 30;15(12) 2020.