Expediting Target Validation through Provision of New Chemical Tools

This studentship aims to expedite validation of emerging protein targets in disease pathology through the design and synthesis of a library of tool compounds known as reactive fragments, as well as developing downstream biocompatible chemistry for exemplification of hit compounds without isolation prior to assay. These are low molecular weight compounds encoded for biological activity which also contain a novel reactive functional group, capable of covalently modifying a target protein. The compound library can be screened against either isolated proteins or cellular preparations relevant disease, with potential to utilise ML methods for analysis of the large datasets generated. The proposed work-plan is of direct relevance to key EPSRC Theme of Chemical Biology.