Our laboratory uses small organic molecules to identify and define novel targets for the treatment of a variety of intractable biomedical problems. We use the tools of synthetic organic chemistry, biochemistry, combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, and cell biology to explore disease states that have for a variety of reasons resisted the standard paradigm of drug discovery and development. In the course of this work we often obtain clinical samples from patients in an effort to both define the levels of a target in the patient population and to test the efficacy of our compounds in these clinical isolates. We are actively using small molecules to define novel biological targets for the treatment of cancer, neurodegeneration, and drug-resistant bacteria. Thus the products of this work are both novel compounds and novel protein or RNA targets.
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