Rate My Professor Nicholas Clanton

Nicholas Clanton, Ph.D., serves as the Director of the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Preclinical Pharmacology Core for Accelerated Drug Discovery and Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from UTSA in 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Doug Frantz. His dissertation, titled "Leveraging Natural Product Scaffolds for Drug Discovery and Development," focused on the synthesis and biological evaluation of anticancer compounds inspired by taccalonolide natural products. Following his doctoral studies, Clanton joined the newly established Preclinical Pharmacology Core in 2021 as assistant director, advancing to full director in 2025. In this role, he oversees a state-of-the-art facility equipped with advanced instrumentation, including Thermo Scientific Orbitrap and TSQ mass spectrometers, Sophion QPatch-II automated patch clamp systems, and Schrodinger software suites for computational drug design.

Clanton's research specializations include drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), ion channel pharmacology and drug discovery, development of cellular models for absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) screening, quantitative small-molecule bioanalysis by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and computer-aided drug design. The core provides industry-level services such as in vitro ADME and toxicology assessments, in vivo pharmacokinetic analysis in rodents, drug transport studies, metabolite identification, and custom bioanalysis, supporting over 30 collaborative projects in therapeutic areas including cancer, chronic pain, infectious diseases, epilepsy, and neurodegenerative disorders. Key publications co-authored by Clanton encompass "Preclinical development of brain permeable ERβ agonist for the treatment of glioblastoma" (Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2023), "A Novel Small Molecule PKCε Inhibitor Reduces Hyperalgesia Induced by Paclitaxel or Opioid Withdrawal" (JCI Insight, 2025), and "Pharmacokinetics of [¹⁸F]-taccalonolide, a covalent microtubule stabilizer, in triple-negative breast cancer xenografts" (ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 2025). In 2025, Clanton and his team received a competitive instrument grant from Sophion Bioscience for the QPatch-II 48 system, enhancing high-throughput cardiac safety screening and ion channel studies. He has been listed among honorees at UTSA's 2023 University Excellence Awards and mentors students in the Chemistry Summer REU program.