Brendan Frett

High Impact

Assistant Professor

UAMS

Last publication 2025 Last refreshed 2026-05-16

faculty

Pharmaceutical Science, College of Pharmacy

BAFrett@uams.edu

24 h-index 135 pubs 1,435 cited

Research Areas

Links

ORCID Lab Website UAMS TRI Profile

OverviewAI-generated summary

Dr. Brendan Frett's research focuses on the discovery and development of small-molecule inhibitors targeting kinases involved in cancer and other diseases. His work leverages structure-based drug design and medicinal chemistry to create novel compounds with potential for clinical translation. Dr. Frett has investigated inhibitors for various kinases, including RET, TRK, and FLT3, which are implicated in different types of cancer such as acute myeloid leukemia and lymphomas.

His laboratory synthesizes and evaluates these compounds, examining their structure-activity relationships and their effects on cancer cells and tumor models. Dr. Frett's research has led to the identification of bifunctional inhibitors and compounds with specific binding poses, aiming to overcome resistance mechanisms and improve therapeutic efficacy. He has a strong interest in translational research, seeking to move laboratory discoveries into clinical development to directly benefit patients.

Dr. Frett's scholarly output includes over 135 publications with 1,408 citations, and an h-index of 24, designating him as a highly cited researcher. He collaborates extensively with colleagues at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, including Baku Acharya, Samantha Kendrick, Ying-Zhi Xu, and Mason McCrury, with whom he shares a significant number of publications.

Research Overview

Dr. Brendan Frett received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences with an emphasis in Drug Discovery and Development from the University of Arizona in 2014. He received postdoctoral training in Medicinal Chemistry as well as Pharmaceutics at the University of Arizona. Dr. Frett has successfully transferred academic-based discoveries to pharmaceutical companies for clinical development. He is interested in pursuing translational research projects, where research completed in his laboratory can directly help patients.

Metrics

h-index: 24
Publications: 135
Citations: 1,435

Selected Publications

Discovery of N-(3-fluorophenyl)-2-(4-((7-(1-methyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)quinazolin-4-yl)amino)phenyl)acetamide as the first orally active selective aurora kinase B inhibitor (2025)

7 citations DOI OpenAlex
Discovery of the DNA-PKcs inhibitor DA-143 which exhibits enhanced solubility relative to NU7441 (2024)

2 citations DOI OpenAlex
Discovery of 9H-pyrimido[4,5-b]indole derivatives as dual RET/TRKA inhibitors (2024)

3 citations DOI OpenAlex
Enhancer‐activated <scp>RET</scp> confers protection against oxidative stress to <scp>KMT2A</scp>‐rearranged acute myeloid leukemia (2024)

8 citations DOI OpenAlex
Kinase inhibitor macrocycles: a perspective on limiting conformational flexibility when targeting the kinome with small molecules (2023)

14 citations DOI OpenAlex
Bifunctional Inhibitor Reveals NEK2 as a Therapeutic Target and Regulator of Oncogenic Pathways in Lymphoma (2023)

13 citations DOI OpenAlex
443 Team Science (2023)

DOI OpenAlex
An updated patent review of rearranged during transfection (RET) kinase inhibitors (2016–present) (2022)

5 citations DOI OpenAlex
FLT3 inhibitors for acute myeloid leukemia: successes, defeats, and emerging paradigms (2022)

26 citations DOI OpenAlex
Targeting a Novel G-Quadruplex in the CARD11 Oncogene Promoter with Naptho(2,1-b)furan-1-ethanol,2-nitro- Requires the Nitro Group (2022)

6 citations DOI OpenAlex
Targeting TGF-β: Triumphs and Challenges (2022)

2 citations DOI OpenAlex
Discovery of N-Trisubstituted Pyrimidine Derivatives as Type I RET and RET Gatekeeper Mutant Inhibitors with a Novel Kinase Binding Pose (2022)

16 citations DOI OpenAlex
Targeting Rearranged during Transfection in Cancer: A Perspective on Small-Molecule Inhibitors and Their Clinical Development (2021)

35 citations DOI OpenAlex
Discovery of imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-thiophene derivatives as FLT3 and FLT3 mutants inhibitors for acute myeloid leukemia through structure-based optimization of an NEK2 inhibitor (2021)

20 citations DOI OpenAlex
Discovery of 4-aminoquinolines as highly selective TGFβR1 inhibitors with an attenuated MAP4K4 profile for potential applications in immuno-oncology (2021)

4 citations DOI OpenAlex

View all publications on OpenAlex →

Grants & Funding

Center for Studies of Host Response to Cancer Therapy NIH Co-Investigator
Selective RET Kinase and Its Mutant Inhibitors for the Treatment of Medullary Thyroid Cancer NIH Co-Investigator
Center for Molecular Interactions in Cancer (CMIC) NIH Co-Investigator