Therese Ku, Ph.D

Research Interests

Therese Ku received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2008. From there, she served as a laboratory technician in the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine before pursuing her Ph.D. in Chemistry at UMBC, under the mentorship of Professor Katherine Seley-Radtke. The focus of her dissertation was to synthesize nucleoside analogues possessing flexible or expanded purine bases with the intention of characterizing their ability to recognized or inhibit specific nucleoside recognizing proteins/enzymes. She received her Ph.D. in 2018.

Since 2018, Therese has been an IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Amy H. Newman, part of the Medicinal Chemistry Section of the Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch. Her research focus is to design, synthesize, and test small molecule atypical dopamine transporter inhibitors in the hopes of finding a drug that may prevent/reverse psychostimulant addiction.