Chemical and Structural Biology

Cancer Center researchers in the Chemical and Structural Biology Program make use of a wide range of chemical, biochemical, and structural approaches to investigate the underlying mechanisms involved in cancer, identify unique biological targets for cancer chemotherapy, and develop potential chemical approaches to cancer treatments. Fundamental and technical advances in chemistry, biochemistry, and structural and molecular biology over the past several decades have provided unprecedented opportunities to probe the living systems involved in cancer at a molecular level. The combination of multidisciplinary approaches in this program proves complementary in research involving:

• Intracellular signaling pathways, the cell cycle, and cancer
• Tools for treatment, analysis, and prevention of human cancers
• Unique target structures for cancer chemotherapy
• Membrane proteins in cancer chemotherapy

Structural biology approaches allow program members to address the molecular mechanism of target molecules using high-resolution NMR, X-Ray crystallography and electron microscopy, and a supporting array of biophysical techniques. By developing a structural understanding of these molecules and their interactions, they provide a chemical framework on which mutations and modifications associated with cancer can be understood and from which new potential inhibitors can be developed. Research in this program in proteomic analysis can first define these critical molecular targets and then explore epigenetic variations and response to cellular signaling that can provide the basis for analysis in modern molecular medicine approaches to cancer. Chemical biology provides another highly effective approach for identifying these critical targets and can also probe the biochemical details of cancer-relevant molecules in a high-throughput fashion. By applying groundbreaking chemical methodology this area of research can then drive the development of unique chemical entities that amplify and complement the research being done in therapeutics development, delivery and imaging efforts in the other Cancer Center programs.