Future Drug Discovery Empowered by Chemical Biology
February 21-22, 2023 in Nara, Japan
Brian Shoichet
Brian Shoichet received BSc in Chemistry from MIT and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from UCSF, with Tack Kuntz. He was a Damon-Runyon Fellow with Brian Matthews at Institute of Molecular Biology, where he studied protein stability-activity trade-offs. In 1996, he joined the faculty of Northwestern University in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, and was recruited back to UCSF in 2003, where he is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
A lesson from the Matthews lab was the importance of model systems for complicated problems, and of cycles of theory and experiment. In the Shoichet lab, new computational methods for ligand discovery are tested prospectively by affinity, crystallography and cryoEM. Studies begin in model systems that isolate specific terms, broadening to bio-relevant targets. For these we seek novel ligands that illuminate new signaling and function, ultimately in animal models.
Daniel Nomura
Dan Nomura is a Professor of Chemical Biology and Molecular Therapeutics in the Department of Chemistry, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in the Division of Molecular Therapeutics, and the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley and an Investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF. Since 2017, he has been the Director of the Novartis-Berkeley Translational Chemical Biology Institute focused on using chemoproteomic platforms to tackle the undruggable proteome. He is Co-Founder of Frontier Medicines and the Founder of Vicinitas Therapeutics. He is also on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. He earned his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology and Ph.D. in Molecular Toxicology at UC Berkeley with Professor John Casida and was a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Research with Professor Benjamin F. Cravatt before returning to Berkeley as a faculty member in 2011. Among his honors include the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award, Searle Scholar, and American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award and the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research ASPIRE award.
Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost
Mo Seyedsayamdost obtained a combined B.S./M.S. degree in Biochemistry from Brandeis University with highest honors and subsequently conducted graduate studies in the Department of Chemistry at MIT under the guidance of Prof. JoAnne Stubbe. He then joined the groups of Prof. Jon Clardy and Prof. Roberto Kolter as a Novartis LSRF postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he examined the roles of small molecules in mediating microbial interspecies interactions. In 2013, Mo started as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University, rising to the rank of full professor in 2020. His lab is interested in the discovery, structure, function, and biosynthesis of new small molecules with bioactive or therapeutic properties. These studies blend approaches from microbiology, bacterial genetics, small molecule chemistry, biochemistry, and mechanistic enzymology. Mo also holds appointments in the Department of Molecular Biology, the High Meadows Environmental Institute, and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Sean Cutler
Sean Cutler is a plant biologist recognized for his work on the hormone abscisic acid (ABA), which is a stress-activated signaling molecule that helps plants cope with drought stress. Dr. Cutler was born in Canada and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in anthropology (B.A.) and botany (M.S.), and from Stanford University in biological sciences (Ph.D.). After brief postdoctoral studies at the Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Cutler became an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and subsequently moved to UCR in 2006. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Plant Cell Biology in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2017), and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2018). He has won multiple awards for his research including the American Society of Plant Biologists' Charles Albert Shull Award (2011) for outstanding contributions to plant biology. Dr. Cutler's research focuses on understanding and manipulating plant responses to drought. His laboratory uses a combination of chemical, biochemical, and genetic approaches to dissect the mechanism of action of ABA, a central regulator of plant stress responses.
Seung Bum Park
Seung Bum Park is a Professor of Chemistry Department and Director of CRI Center for Chemical Proteomics at Seoul National University. He received his BS (1993) and MS (1997) in Chemistry from Yonsei University, Korea and his Ph.D. (2001) in Bioorganic Chemistry from Texas A&M University. After three years of post-doctoral training at Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber, he was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Chemistry Department at Seoul National University (2004) and promoted to the tenured Associate Professor (2008) and full Professor (2013). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was a visiting Professor at the Scripps Research Institute with Prof. Peter G. Schultz in 2009. His research interests are in the fields of chemical biology including molecular diversity, fluorescent bioprobe, phenotypic screening, target identification for drug discovery targeting protein-protein interaction. Seung Bum serves as grant committees and scientific advisory board members for various journals and research organizations. He won a number of awards and found bio-venture SPARK Biopharma, Inc. (2016) for the phenotypic discovery of first-in-class therapeutics. His team at SPARK Biopharma focuses on the small-molecule-based immune-modulating agents for cancer, fibrosis, and neurodegeneration.
Cynthia Wolberger
Dr. Cynthia Wolberger is a professor of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on structural biology, ubiquitin signaling and regulation of transcription.
Dr. Wolberger received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Wolberger joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1991.
Dr. Wolberger studies how DNA packaging proteins—which coil DNA into neat, compact bundles in the cell—turn genes on or off, or initiate broken DNA repair. These DNA packaging proteins, aka histones, are called to action by the addition of chemical tags, like ubiquitin protein or acetyl chemical groups. To determine the structure of the histones and which chemical tags they use, Dr. Wolberger employs x-ray crystallography, a technique that allows researchers to develop three-dimensional models of proteins.
Dr. Wolberger is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has been recognized with the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award by The Protein Society for her work in determining the structure of proteins involved in transcriptional regulation.