The Webinar Series will take place bi-weekly on: Thursdays

12 pm noon (EDT)

9 am (PT), 5 pm (GMT), 6 pm (CET)

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We will use a single Zoom webinar registration for the upcoming seminars:

https://dfci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7JJaw52T8yZYt8-ykL6UQ

Some seminars might be recorded and accessible for a limited time.

Alessandra Ianari (Broad Institute)

Daniel Bondeson (Broad Institute)

Behnam Nabet (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute)

June 24th, 2021 

Degron Tagging Workshop​​

Webinar registration: https://dfci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7JJaw52T8yZYt8-ykL6UQ

Host: Mikolaj Slabicki and Radek Nowak

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12:00 - 12:05 -  Introduction

12:05  - 12:25 -“Systematic profiling of degron technologies to enable tools for genetic                              target validation” Alessandra Ianari & Daniel Bondeson

12:25 - 12:35 - Q&A Part I

12:35 - 12:55 - “Protein control using the dTAG platform“ Behnam Nabet

12:55 - 13:30 - Q&A Part II and Panel Discussion

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Alessandra Ianari MD, Ph.D.

Associate Director in the Cancer Program at Broad

Alessandra is responsible for leading drug development projects in collaboration with the Center for the development of Therapeutics (CDoT/Broad) or through external collaborations. Her work focuses also on the generation of new chemical biology tools to validate new targets and to advance small molecule leads. Her current interest is to use the degron tag technology for in vitro and in vivo target validation and toxicology studies. Prior to that, Alessandra worked in the Cellular Pharmacology group at CDoT and at C4 Therapeutics on targeted protein degradation

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Daniel Bondeson, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate, Golub Lab

Daniel's graduate work in the lab of Craig Crews at Yale focused on targeted protein degradation, where he published on the utility and mechanism of novel degrader molecules. He currently works on understanding and validating novel cancer vulnerabilities using targeted protein degradation and other novel technologies. His particular focus is on phosphate dysregulation in ovarian and uterine cancers as a novel therapeutic modality. 

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Behnam Nabet, Ph.D.

Behnam Nabet, Ph.D. is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Human Biology Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and will open his laboratory in September 2021. He is currently the Katherine Loker Pinard Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Nathanael Gray at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from Northwestern University and B.A. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. In his postdoctoral research, Dr. Nabet developed a generalizable technology platform known as the dTAG system to rapidly degrade any target protein. The dTAG system pairs potent small molecule degraders and versatile tagging strategies to achieve selective degradation of divergent proteins. This technology facilitates biological exploration and drug target validation in cells and animal models. Dr. Nabet is currently deploying the dTAG platform to investigate pancreatic cancer vulnerabilities and has been sharing the technology with the global scientific community in an open-source manner. He has been recognized with several scientific honors, including an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Claudia Adams Barr Program for Innovative Cancer Research award.

Xiaoyu Zhang

Scripps Research Institute

July 8th, 2021 

Discovery of small molecule-mediated protein degradation pathways

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Webinar registration: https://dfci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7JJaw52T8yZYt8-ykL6UQ

Host: Xiaoxi Liu

Xiaoyu Zhang earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees at Zhejiang University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Chemical Biology from Cornell University under the guidance of Dr. Hening Lin. His doctoral thesis work focused on understanding the biological roles of NAD+-dependent sirtuin enzymes and protein long-chain fatty-acylation in human cancer. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Benjamin Cravatt’s laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute and interested in leveraging chemical tools, chemical proteomic platforms and molecular biology approaches to broadly interrogate and discover E3 ubiquitin ligases that support small molecule-induced protein degradation. He has been recognized with a number of scientific honors, including The NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00), Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, Eli Lilly Asia Outstanding Graduate Thesis Award, Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund Scholarship, and Chu Kochen Scholarship.

Rajesh Chopra
FRCP, FRCPath, FRSB, PhD Venture Partner, Apple Tree Partners

July 22th, 2021 

Targeting E3 ligases for Protein Degradation in Cancer Drug Discovery

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Webinar registration: https://dfci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7JJaw52T8yZYt8-ykL6UQ

Host: Mikolaj Slabicki

Raj Chopra is a venture partner at ATP. At The Institute of Cancer Research in London, as director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, he led one of the largest academic drug discovery groups in the world and focused on targeted protein degradation and complex 3D cell culture models. Raj also worked at Celgene from 2009 to 2016 as corporate vice president of Translational and Early Drug Development, leading an international team of more than 100 scientists. Before joining Celgene, he held leadership positions in AstraZeneca’s Oncology Therapeutics group in the UK and US. Raj started his academic career as the director of Hematological Oncology at Christie Hospital and was group leader at the Paterson Institute of Cancer Research, both located in Manchester, UK. He is a non-executive director of Artios Pharma, established to develop a next-generation DNA damage response target pipeline of cancer therapeutics, and co-founder of Monté Rosa Therapeutics, a biotech focused on targeted protein degradation.