Bi-weekly: Thursdays, 11 am EDT/EST, 8 am PT/PST, 4 pm BST/BDT, 5 pm CEST/CET
https://dfci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7JJaw52T8yZYt8-ykL6UQ
Some seminars were recorded and accessible for a limited time on our youtube channel.
Upcoming Speakers
May 2nd, 2024
Host: Mikolaj Slabicki
Stuart J. Conway and Patrick Brennan
University of California
Bringing Bump-and-Hole to Molecular Glues: The Development of Orthogonal IMiD-Degron Pairs
Stuart Conway is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and the inaugural holder of the Michael and Alice Jung Endowed Chair in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studied Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Warwick (1994-1997) before undertaking PhD research at the University of Bristol (1997-2001) with Profs. Jeff Watkins FRS and David Jane. Stuart completed post-doctoral studies with Professor Andrew Holmes FRS at the University of Cambridge (2001-2003) and in 2003, he was appointed as a Lecturer in Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of St Andrews. In 2008 was appointed as an Associate Professor at Oxford, and between October 2014 and June 2023 he was a Full Professor at Oxford. He was concurrently the E. P. Abraham Cephalosporin Fellow in Organic Chemistry at St Hugh's College, Oxford.
Dr Patrick Brennan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Patrick received his MSci in Biology and Chemistry from Durham University in 2016, followed by an MA in music performance from the University of Salford in 2017. Between 2018 and 2023, Patrick completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, studying under Professor Stuart Conway and Professor Charlotte Deane, alongside industrial collaborators Dr Lewis Brayshaw and Dr Mike Hann at GSK. Patrick’s PhD project explored the use of ‘bump-and-hole’ methodology for the design of orthogonal immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs) and complementary zinc finger (ZF) degron motifs for use in target validation and beyond. Patrick is continuing to work in the field of targeted protein degradation at UCLA, and is also broadly interested in protein engineering and de novo design, medicinal chemistry, and their applications in chemical and synthetic biology.
Diane Haakonsen
UC Berkeley
Stress response silencing in neurodegenerative disease
Diane Haakonsen received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from EPFL, Switzerland. Diane then did her graduate work at MIT in the lab of Dr. Michael Laub where she studied the regulation of gene expression and chromosome structure during the bacterial cell cycle. As a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Michael Rapé at UC Berkeley, Diane studied the regulation of proteome homeostasis in human cells and its important role in disease. There, she combined synthetic lethal CRISPR-Cas9 screening and biochemistry to identify and characterize the mechanism to silence the cellular response to mitochondrial protein import stress. Her future research on the mechanism and function of stress response silencing aims to advance our understanding of stress response regulation which will provide novel therapeutic avenues for diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer.
May 16th, 2024
Host: Katherine Donovan / Mikolaj Slabicki
Sandi Radko-Juettner and Hong Yue
St. Jude / DFCI
Targeting DCAF5 suppresses SMARCB1-mutant cancer by stabilizing SWI/SNF
Dr. Sandi Radko-Juettner is currently the Research Program Manager for the Hematological Malignancies Program at St. Jude Children’s Research, where she extensively collaborates on projects aimed at improving cure rates for childhood leukemias and lymphomas while minimizing treatment-related adverse effects. The research efforts she manages focus on preclinical studies validating oncogenic drivers and testing new therapies in engineered mouse models and patient-derived xenografts, as well as novel discoveries in pharmacogenetics for both clinically problematic hematological malignancies and less well-characterized malignancies. Dr. Radko-Juettner graduated in 2023 with her PhD from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, completing her thesis work in the lab of Dr. Charlie Roberts. Her work in the lab focused on mechanistic studies of novel vulnerabilities in pediatric rhabdoid tumors as well as resistance mechanisms to epigenetic drugs. During her time in the Roberts lab, she was awarded with the St. Jude Doctoral Research Achievement Award as well as an NIH NCI F31 award. Her research contributions have led to co-authored papers in several prestigious journals including Nature, Molecular Cell, and Cell Reports.
Dr. Hong Yue is a prominent Staff Scientist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Harvard Medical School, renowned for her expertise in assay development and molecular biology research. Her professional journey is marked by a steadfast commitment to propelling the fields of drug discovery and diagnostics forward. Dr. Yue's work has significantly enhanced the scientific community's understanding of disease mechanisms and has led to the creation of cutting-edge therapeutic strategies. During her Ph.D. studies, Dr. Yue concentrated on the Wnt signaling pathway, where she excelled in designing selective inhibitors of GSK-3β. Her innovative efforts in modulating this vital pathway were complemented by her transformative work with the HDAC inhibitor Vorinostat, showcasing her exceptional talent for altering molecular pathways to unlock potential therapeutic uses. Dr. Yue's postdoctoral research in Marc Vidal's lab at DFCI allowed her to refine her skills in high-throughput screening, automated liquid handling, and next-generation sequencing technologies, further enhancing her scientific repertoire. In her current role at DFCI, Dr. Yue continues to be a trailblazer in the realm of drug discovery and diagnostic research. She has played a crucial role in the development of biochemical and cellular assays aimed at studying target protein degradation. Her pivotal contributions have led to the identification of novel drug targets, co-authorship of a paper in the prestigious journal Nature, and first authorship in both Cancer Cell and Cell Reports Methods. Dr. Yue's dedication to innovation is also evident in her instrumental role in developing new assays, which has culminated in the publication of 13 research articles and the filing of 2 patents. Dr. Hong Yue's distinguished career and her ongoing contributions to the field make her a vital asset to the scientific community, particularly in the pursuit of advancing molecular biology research and therapeutic discovery.
Francis Barany
Weill Cornell
CURE-PROs – Reversible, Self-Assembling Drugs for Targeted Protein Degradation.
Francis Barany, Ph.D. is Professor of Microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Barany is best known for inventing the ligase chain reaction (LCR), ligase detection reaction (LDR), and Universal DNA arrays, which are the foundation of commercial tests to diagnose genetic diseases, detect infectious pathogens, and profile cancers using DNA microarrays and targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS). He received a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow (1982-1985), Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Career Scientist Award (1992-1997), Mayent/Rothschild Visiting Professor, Institut Curie (2000), Medical Diagnostics Research leader, Scientific American 50 (2004), Ezra Innovation Award, Cornell University (2011), International Federation of Clinical Chemistry Award for Significant Contributions in Molecular Diagnostics (2014), and National Academy of Inventors Fellow (2016). Barany holds 74 issued U.S. patents and over 100 international patents that are widely used by molecular diagnostic and sequencing companies. Barany founded Coferon Inc., Acuamark Diagnostics Inc., and TwiXimo Therapeutics; the later for developing a new class of protein-degradation drugs.