Upcoming Speakers
Lorraine Glennie & Luke Simpson
University of Dundee
December 1, 2022
Target protein localization and its impact on PROTAC-mediated degradation
Host: Radoslaw Nowak
Lorraine is a PhD student in the Sapkota Lab of the MRC PPU, University of Dundee. Her PhD work branches into two main areas: (1) investigating the impact of cellular factors on PROTAC-mediated degradation and (2) exploring how the elusive FAM83 proteins control cellular function via their interaction with casein kinase 1 (CK1). Prior to her PhD study, she obtained a BSc (Hons) in Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh before completing an MRes in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, focusing on the regulation of inflammatory signalling by post-translational modifications.
Luke completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof Gopal Sapkota and Dr Ian Ganley in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation (PPU) Unit at the University of Dundee, Scotland. Luke’s doctoral research centred around exploring technologies for targeted protein modification and involved the combined use of nanobody- and PROTAC-based technologies for targeted protein degradation. Since obtaining his PhD, Luke joined Prof Alessio Ciulli’s Group in the Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation (CeTPD) at the University of Dundee as a Cell Biologist as part of the PROTAC Drug Discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim.
Sarath Ramachandran
University of Dundee
Structure-based design of a phosphotyrosine-masked covalent ligand targeting the E3 ligase SOCS2
I joined CeTPD-Boehringer-Ingelheim (ACBI) collaboration team as a senior drug discovery scientist (structural biology/biophysics) in March 2022 and am currently working on tackling challenging cancer targets using targeted protein degradation. Prior to joining the ACBI team, I was leading the EUbOPEN collaboration from Alessio’s lab and was involved with developing chemical probes targeting novel E3 ligases and expanding the current arsenal of E3 ligase recruiting PROTAC handles. I joined Alessio’s lab in 2017 after I completed my Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Sivaraman Jayaraman at the National University of Singapore, where I worked on understanding the allosteric inhibition mechanism of a key cancer target - glutaminase. I did my Master’s in Biotechnology from IIT-Guwahati, and bachelor's in Biotechnology from VTU, Karnataka (India).
Miklós Békés
Arvinas
December 15, 2022
The Arvinas PROTAC® Discovery Engine:
Insights from Discovering & Developing Molecules That Induce Targeted Protein Degradation
Host: Katherine Donovan
Miklós is Associate Director of Platform Biology at Arvinas, leading the Degrader Mechanisms Group tasked with aiding in the discovery and characterization of novel small molecule PROTAC® protein degraders in the expanding TPD landscape, where his group is responsible for early discovery (biochemistry, structural biology, biophysics and cell biology). Prior to Arvinas, Miklós worked at Nurix Therapeutics, and conducted his post-doctoral studies in the ubiquitin space in New York City at New York University and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Miklós earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Pathology from the University of California, San Diego conducting studies on ubiquitin’s cousin, SUMO, at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla. A lifelong scientific fan of #ubiquitin, he is passionate about using our mechanistic understanding of a cell's degrader machinery to advance small molecule drug discovery and development in targeted protein degradation with the ultimate goal of potentially delivering benefit to patients.
WINTER HOLIDAY BREAK
Sai Gourisankar
Standford University
January 5, 2023
Chemical Rewiring of Cancer Drivers to Activate Apoptosis
Host: Katherine Donovan
Sai Gourisankar is a PhD student in Gerald Crabtree’s laboratory at Stanford University. His studies developed chemical inducers of proximity to regulate endogenous chromatin and transcriptional regulators in genetically unmodified cells, using a combination of biochemical, genomic, and chemical approaches in collaboration with the laboratory of Nathanael Gray. Prior to joining Stanford in 2017 and studying chemical biology, Sai acquired an MPP from University of Oxford and originally obtained both a B.S. and a B.A. in Chemical Engineering and Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at Austin.
Xingui Liu
University of Dundee
Discovery of XL01126: a PROTAC degrader of Leucine Rich Repeat Kinase 2
Bio: Xingui is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in Prof. Alessio Ciulli’s lab at the Center for Targeted Protein Degradation (CeTPD), where she is focusing her research on developing PROTAC degraders of Leucine Rich Repeat Kinase 2 (LRRK2), a promising target for Parkinson’s disease. Before joining the Ciulli group, she was a Postdoc associate at the University of Florida working with Prof. Guangrong Zheng and Prof. Daohong Zhou. At the University of Florida, she was part of a team that developed very effective BCL-XL/BCL-2 PROTAC degrader molecules. One of which was licensed to the Dialectic Therapeutics and led to the development of one of the first VHL-based PROTACs to enter the clinic and to be dosed in human patients for the treatment of hematological malignancies. She completed her PhD in Guangrong Zheng’s lab at University of Arkansans for Medical Sciences, where she designed, synthesized, and characterized delta-tocotrienol based radio-protectors.