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Ana-Maria Soto

Assistant Professor
Biochemistry

Office: 569 Smith
Phone: (410)704-2605
E-mail: asoto@towson.edu

Website: http://pages.towson.edu/asoto
Education B.S. Chemistry (1996) Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Lima, Peru)
Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences (2002) University of Nebraska Medical Center
Postdoctoral Associate (2002-2005) Johns Hopkins University
Teaching General Chemistry II (CHEM 111)
Biochemistry I,II (CHEM 351/357)
Biochemistry Lab (CHEM 356)
Seminar in Chemistry (CHEM 401)
Research Dr. Soto’s current research interests are on the stability and ligand binding properties of nucleic acid structures. She is especially interested in studying the effect of electrostatics in drug binding and inhibition and in the development of small inhibitor molecules.
Selected Publications
  1. Soto, A.M. Misra, V. and Draper, D.E. “Tertiary structure of an RNA pseudoknot is stabilized by "diffuse" Mg2+ ions.” Biochemistry 2007, 46, 2973-2983. Link to Full Article
  2. Grilley, D.P., Soto, A.M. and Draper, D.E. “Mg2+-RNA interaction free energies and their relationship to the folding of RNA tertiary structures” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S A. 2006, 103, 14003-14008. Link to Full Article
  3. Soto, A. M., Rentzeperis, D., Shikiya, R., Alonso, M., Marky, L.A. “DNA Intramolecular Triplexes Containing dT à dU Substitutions: Unfolding Energetics and Ligand Binding” Biochemistry 2006, 45, 3051-3059. Link to Full Article
  4. Draper, D.E., Grilley, D.P. and Soto, A.M. “Ions and RNA folding” Annu. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 2005, 34, 221-243. Link to Full Article
  5. Cabello-Villegas, J., Giles, K.E., Soto, A.M., Yu, P., Mougin, A., Beemon, K.L. and Wang, Y. “Solution structure of the pseudo-5’ splice site of a retroviral splicing suppressor” RNA 2004, 10, 1388-1398. Link to Full Article
  6. Soto, A. M., Gmeiner, W. H. and Marky, L. A. “Energetic and Conformational Contributions to the Stability of Okazaki Fragments” Biochemistry 2002, 41, 6842-6849. Link to Full Article
  7. Soto, A.M., Kankia, B.K., Dande, P., Gold, B. and Marky, L.A. “Thermodynamic and Hydration Effects for the Incorporation of a Cationic 3-Aminopropyl Chain into DNA” Nucleic Acids Res. 2002, 30, 3171-3180. Link to Full Article
  8. Soto, A. M. and Marky, L. A. “Thermodynamic Contributions for the Incorporation of GTA Triplets within Canonical TAT/TAT and C+GC/C+GC Base-Triplet Stacks of DNA Triplexes” Biochemistry 2002, 41, 12475-12482. Link to Full Article
  9. Soto, A. M., Loo, J. and Marky, L. A. “Energetic Contributions for the Formation of TAT/TAT, TAT/CGC+ and CGC+/CGC+ Base Triplet Stacks” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 14355-14363. Link to Full Article
  10. Soto, A.M., Kankia, B.K., Dande, P., Gold, B. and Marky, L.A. “Incorporation of a cationic aminopropyl chain in DNA hairpins: thermodynamics and hydration” Nucleic Acids Res. 2001, 29, 3638-3645. Link to Full Article

Faculty & Staff

Department of Chemistry
Smith Hall 543
Towson University
8000 York Road
Towson, MD 21252