Chiral Recognition in Cells: From Chemical Proteomics to Enzyme Discovery

Please join Yale Chemistry for a seminar in Chemical Biology chemistry with Prof. Gregory Craven, Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University.

Summary: Stereochemistry provides a powerful way to encode and read out molecular recognition in complex biological systems. I will describe how chiral small-molecule probes enable the discovery of selective ligand–protein interactions in cells, and how one interaction led us to an uncharacterized enzyme and its role in fatty acid metabolism. This work illustrates how chemical proteomics can connect molecular recognition to enzyme function.

Bio: Gregory Craven's work combines organic chemistry, chemoproteomics and structural biology to probe and perturb dysregulated signaling pathways, especially in cancer. He earned a first-class degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford and completed his PhD in chemical biology at Imperial College London. He then conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he developed lysine-targeted covalent inhibitors and chemoproteomic methods. Notably, his postdoctoral work led to the discovery of the first mutant-selective inhibitor of AKT1(E17K), a common driver of breast cancer. His lab is part of Yale’s Institute for Biomolecular Design and Discovery (IBDD), focusing on the design and characterization of new small molecule probes against disease. For more information on Prof. Craven's research: Craven Lab | Gregory Craven | Yale University

Hosted by Prof. Nilay Hazari