Speaker:
Dr. Evert Njomen, Scripps Research Institute
The Department of Chemistry is pleased to host Dr. Evert Njomen for a seminar on Monday, December 9.
Title: "Targeting the Undrugged Proteome with Small Molecules"
Abstract: Human genetics has greatly enhanced our understanding of the fraction of human proteins and their proteoforms with disease relevance. However, many of these proteins remain uncharacterized and lack selective small-molecule ligands to decipher their role in human pathophysiology. Understanding how these proteins contribute to human diseases and how we can develop safer therapeutic strategies to address them remains a significant challenge at the interface of chemistry and biology. This seminar will focus on small molecule approaches to discover and characterize proteins that contribute to human diseases, including cancer. Emphasis will be placed on an integrated chemical proteomic platform for proteome-wide ligand discovery in native biological systems. I will discuss how this integrated approach has enabled the discovery and characterization of ligands for structurally and functionally diverse proteins. This includes compounds that stereoselectively and site-specifically disrupt the spindle assembly checkpoint complex, leading to delayed mitotic exit in cancer cells, as well as the broader applications of this platform.
Host: Chemistry Department Chemical Biology Series
Chemistry Department Seminar