Accepted

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Quentin Smith, for accepting me in his laboratory and provide me opportunity to work on this exciting project. He loves and enjoys science and pursuit of searching intricacies of biological complexities. In our lab, we had long scientific discussions and he employed an Aristotelian approach of asking questions and leading us to appreciate cobweb of complex scientific concepts. He has an infectious enthusiasm for research. Without his guidance and persistent help this dissertation would not have been possible. He was always available for solving problems, guiding and encouraging tough times. He taught me what good science is, that it is critical to understand mechanism and application, validate techniques, ensure accuracy and reproducibility of findings. I am highly grateful to Dr. Helen Thorsheim for helping and guiding me at every stage of this project. She taught me HPLC, LC-MS, helped in developing extraction, and analytical methods. Without her guidance, patience, motivation and persistence, we could not have concluded this complicated project. I am thankful to my committee members; Dr. Thoma