Our research seeks structural and functional insights into novel proteins and protein complexes, and how their assembly and/or activation is involved in pathophysiology of human cancers. More specifically, our research interests focus on i) understanding the structure-function relationships of novel immunomodulatory proteins in cancer, and ii) developing novel approaches for targeting difficult proteins that are involved in cancer progression. Ultimate goal is to develop target-specific small molecule modulators that can be used either for therapeutic purposes or as agents to understand the biological function of the protein under study.
To accomplish these goals, we follow a multidisciplinary approach in the interface of chemistry and biology that includes but is not limited to protein expression, purification and characterization, protein X-ray crystallography, protein dynamics, protein engineering, small molecule high-throughput screening, an array of in vitro biochemical and biophysical assays, in vivo assays and computational chemistry.
