University of Minnesota NIH Training Grant Symposium
Chemical Biology: A Catalyst for Discovery
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
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Symposium Speakers Keynote Speaker: Gunda Georg, University of Minnesota (Abstract) Professor Georg and her group are involved in the design, semisynthesis, total synthesis, and evaluation of biologically active agents. Current therapeutic areas include cancer, male contraception, and Alzheimer's disease. These projects require the development of synthetic methods, including asymmetric methodology, synthesis of natural products, and structure-activity studies aimed at improving the therapeutic efficacy of lead compounds, including natural products, and leads from high throughput screening.
Philip Low, Purdue University (Abstract) Dr. Philip Low is the Ralph C. Corley distinguished professor in the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University. His laboratory focuses on two main areas of research – the investigation of the function and molecular organization of the human red blood cell membrane and the use of targeting ligands to deliver covalently attached therapeutic and imaging agents specifically to pathologic tissues for medical purposes. Preclinical data from his laboratory indicates that their strategy of conjugating therapeutics to folate in an effort to target the folate receptor is not only highly effective against diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, but also shows little or no toxicity.
Matt Francis, University of California, Berkeley (Abstract) Research in the Francis group is focused on the development of new synthetic methods for the construction of nanoscale materials. The central strategy involves the attachment of new functional components to specific locations on structural proteins, and the subsequent self-assembly of these conjugates into new types of materials with useful electronic and biological functions.
The Tullius laboratory is developing and applying new methods for determining the structure of DNA and DNA-protein complexes. The Tullius group introduced the use of the hydroxyl radical as a high-resolution chemical footprinting reagent, and developed the missing nucleoside experiment as a rapid method for revealing the thermodynamically-important contacts made by a protein with its DNA binding site. At present they are using these methods to study DNA flexibility, and structural features of complexes of DNA with RNA polymerase, homeodomains, and a variety of other proteins. They are using deuterium kinetic isotope experiments to obtain detailed information on the mechanism of hydroxyl radical cleavage of DNA. They also are developing a new method for performing hydroxyl radical footprinting in vivo.
John Kozarich, ActivX Biosciences (Abstract)
John Kozarich is the
President and Chairman of Activx Biosciences. He also served as Vice
President of Merck Research Laboratories and has held faculty positions
at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Yale University School
of Medicine. He is internationally known for his work on enzyme
mechanisms and chemistry of DNA cleaving antitumor drugs. Yi Lu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Abstract)
Dr. Yi Lu is a professor
in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign. His work in bioinorganic chemistry is aimed at
understanding the role of metal in biological systems along two broad
themes. The first involves exploring electron transfer pathways
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