Sequence Specific Stalling of Protein Translation via Small Molecules
John Chorba, Professor
UC San Francisco
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
A fundamental challenge in drug discovery is that any given therapeutic target requires its own customized strategy. The discovery of a recent compound that binds the human ribosome and inhibits translation in a sequence specific manner offers the potential to “drug” protein targets without the need for a traditional active site or even a binding pocket. We aim to explore the specificity, efficacy, and generalizability of this class of compounds as both research tools and a new paradigm for drug discovery.
Qualifications: Key laboratory tasks can include:
- Molecular evolution experiments to identify optimized protein sequences
- In vitro translation reactions
- Development of fluorescent reporter cell lines for translation levels
- Ribosome purification
- mRNA display
- Generation and diversification of mRNA libraries
- Deep sequencing of RNA libraries
- Synthesis of small molecule libraries
- Kinetic target-templated chemical synthesis
The student will work collaboratively with the lab to develop gradually increasing levels of independence to identify a sub-project of which they can take ownership.
Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: https://chorbalab.ucsf.edu/
Biological & Health Sciences