New Therapeutic Strategies
A critical component of the development of new medicines is the identification and validation of new protein targets. Our laboratory is focused on using state-of the-art methods in chemical biology to discover new therapeutically relevant protein-biomolecule interactions that contribute to disease. We will use a variety of proximity labelling methods on engineered and semi-synthetic proteins to understand how mutations and post-translational modifications lead to diseased phenotypes.
Understanding Transcription in Disease
Transcriptional regulation underpins almost all cellular processes. Due to this, modulation of transcriptional activation shows significant promise as a method for treating cancer among other diseases. However, the proteins that control this key cellular function are considered "undruggable". Our group is interested in understanding these elusive proteins and how they respond to stimulus, with a long term goal of finding new methods for therapy.
PhotoChemical Biology
We have a great interest in using fundamental photochemical principles to develop new chemical reactions in cells that are driven by visible light irradiation. By exploiting the highly chemoselective nature of radical species we are developing new ways to modify proteins and other biomolecules in the most complex of settings.