Dr. Littleton qualified in medicine from St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, England. He received his Ph.D. from Kings College London, specializing in Pharmacology of the Central Nervous System. After serving as Professor of Pharmacology at Kings College, he came to the University of Kentucky as a Visiting Professor in 1995 and has been here ever since. He receives considerable funding from NIH and from the pharmaceutical industry for research into medications development. Research at the KTRDC into "natural products genomics"uses many of the same screening techniques as this research.
Plants produce large numbers of biologically active molecules that have either toxic or beneficial properties for humans. The vast majority of these compounds are likely still uninvestigated because of the difficulties inherent in separation and purification before they can be studied. Several of these problems can be overcome by the application of high throughput pharmacological screening to identify extracts and plant species that have desirable chemical properties. Dr. Littleton's research focus on "natural products genomics" scans the genomes of plants, including tobacco, for the ability to produce novel, valuable products.
