Bi-weekly: Thursdays, 12 pm EDT/EST, 9 am PT/PST, 5 pm BST/BDT, 6 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
November 6th, 2025
Host: Breanna Zerfas
Daniel Blair
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Direct-to-biology Enabled Molecular Glue Discovery
Dr. Daniel Blair specializes in automated and modular chemical synthesis. He completed both his MSci and PhD with Varinder Aggarwal at the University of Bristol, UK, working on modular chemical synthesis using lithiation-borylation reactions. This was followed by a postdoc at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Martin D Burke which centered on automated chemical synthesis, and was supported by a Damon-Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship. In August 2022, he became a part of the St. Jude faculty, as an Assistant Member in the Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics. His lab focusses on the developing high-throughput technologies for creating and comparing small molecules for biological significant functions. Today’s seminar will center on the application of high-throughput experimentation toward the identification of molecular glues.
Marie Malone
Nurix Therapeutics
Using DEL to Access New Ligases for Targeted Protein Degradation
Marie Malone is a Director in the DEL and Protein Sciences group at Nurix Therapeutics, where she leads the DEL Screening Group and the Ligase Discovery Program. Prior to joining Nurix Dr. Malone did her Ph.D. at the Scripps Research Institute with Dr. Brian Paegel where she developed DNA-encoded library compatible chemistry and activity-based DNA-encoded library screening methods. Dr. Malone earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Victoria, Canada.
November 20th, 2025
Host: John Che
Frank McCormick
UCSF
Targeting the RAS pathway with glues, degraders and direct binders.
Frank McCormick, PhD, is a Professor at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and holds the David A. Wood Chair of Tumor Biology and Cancer Research. Prior to joining the UCSF faculty, Dr. McCormick pursued cancer-related work with several Bay Area biotechnology firms and held positions with Cetus Corporation (Director of Molecular Biology, 1981-1990; Vice President of Research, 1990-1991) and Chiron Corporation, where he was Vice President of Research. In 1992 he founded Onyx Pharmaceuticals, a company dedicated to developing new cancer therapies, and served as its Chief Scientific Officer until 1996. At Onyx Pharmaceuticals, he initiated drug discovery efforts that led to the approval of Sorafenib in 2005 for treatment of renal cell cancer, and for liver cancer in 2007, and the approval of ONYX-015 in 2006 in China for treatment of nasopharyngeal cancer. In addition, Dr. McCormick’s group led to the identification of the CDK4 kinase inhibitor, Palbociclib, approved for treating advanced breast cancer. Dr. McCormick's current research interests center on ways of targeting Ras proteins and their regulators, including the NF1 protein neurofibromin.
Dr. McCormick was Director of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1997 to 2014 and he served as President, 2012-2013, for the American Association for Cancer Research. Since 2013, Dr. McCormick has led the National Cancer Institute’s Ras Initiative at the Frederick National Laboratories for Cancer Research overseeing the national effort to develop therapies against Ras-driven cancers. Dr. McCormick was recently awarded (September 2025) the Inaugural Stephenson Global Prize Award in recognition of his research and discoveries that have transformed the field of RAS-driven cancers.
Dr. McCormick is the author of over 430 scientific publications and holds more than 20 issued patents and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.