Research in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry focuses on understanding fundamental biochemical mechanisms underlying health and disease, which are key to developing new and more effective diagnostics and medications.
The department’s basic research not only identifies new drug targets for small molecule drugs, it also develops the tools and methods to discover such targets and therapies and to more rapidly determine their efficacy and safety at the molecular level, thus improving the efficiency of the drug discovery process and potentially leading to improved therapeutics.
Department research is categorized into four broad areas, with routine interplay and overlap among them.
Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry )
Chemical biologists create chemical tools and methods to probe and dissect biological systems. These include vital protein interaction pathways. This work provides insights crucial to the medicinal chemists’ rational design of small molecule drugs to alter the activity of these pathways, resulting in potential therapeutic benefit.
- Discovering enzyme substrates and functions
- Discovering protein ligands to probe and alter function
- Discovering enzyme activators
- Analyzing mechanisms of drug resistance via chemical biology
- Analyzing enzyme conformational dynamics, substrate binding, and catalysis
- Effective drug targeting of pathogens via medicinal chemistry
Computational Chemistry and Biology )
Researchers in this area use computer programs to model, predict, visualize, and analyze the structures, functions, and interactions of biologically important molecules. These include proteins and potential small molecule drugs and the cellular networks they engage.
- Modeling protein regulation via allostery and post-translational modifications
- Visualizing and integrating bioinformatics and biomolecular data
- Modeling membrane permeation to optimize pharmacokinetics
- Determining enzyme function by predicting substrate specificity
Physical Biology )
Department physical biologists develop and apply techniques to identify, quantify, and visualize biologically relevant molecules.
- Proteomics, post-translational modifications, and epigenetics
- Capturing conformational dynamics and transient interactions
- Viewing the cell’s inner life via light microscopy
Protein and Cellular Engineering )
Protein engineers alter, design, and synthesize protein molecules to understand and generate new functions, to monitor biological processes, and to provide new therapies. Department cellular engineers generate tissues with specific cell types to study intercellular and tissue-to-cell signaling in health and disease.
- Monitoring enzyme activity and disease biomarkers
- Generating human proteome antibodies via phage display and directed evolution
- Globally analyzing and dissecting apoptosis
- Proximity tagging of protein-protein interactions
- Investigating cellular interactions in tissues
- Creating fluorescent probes targeting the genome and key bio-pathways
- De novo design of catalytic and membrane proteins
- Probing and modulating membrane proteins