Translational Chemical Biology

Title:
Translational Chemical Biology

Schedule:
Date: 27 April 2023 (Thursday)
Time: 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm (HKT)
Venue: Theatre P4, LG1/F., Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building

Speaker:
Professor Xiaoguang LEI
Boya Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Senior PI of the Peking-Tsinghua Center of Life Sciences, Peking University

Abstract:
Many critical biological processes are conducted by small molecules, so they can arguably be regarded as another essential component of the “central dogma” of molecular biology. Biologically meaningful small molecules may be natural products discovered by nature through many cycles of diversity generation and natural selection, or they may be prepared through organic synthesis to develop drug candidates or chemical probes to study life’s processes. Small molecules are needed to function as probes to explore the known biological pathways further, discover novel pathways and interactions, validate potential drug targets, and treat unmet medical needs as drugs. Accordingly, the central theme of our research focuses on the efficient synthesis of these small molecules and the subsequent biological evaluations of these molecules by applying medicinal chemistry and chemical biology approaches. This lecture will illustrate the opportunities at this interface between chemical biology and drug discovery by describing a series of examples we are actively working on in our laboratory at Peking University. We extensively use bioactive small molecules to explore new biology and develop novel drug candidates for human diseases, such as cancers and autoimmune diseases.

- ALL ARE WELCOME -