News

tashutes

Elena and Tara attend EFMC-ISCB 2025

Last 28-31st January, Elena and Tara attended the 2nd International Symposium on Chemical Biology (EFMC-ISBC) in Basel, organised by the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical biology (EFMC) and the Swiss Chemical Society, Division for Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology (DMCCB). Tara was delighted to have the opportunity to present her first poster at an international conference, ‘A Covalent Approach Towards Proximity-Based Protein Dephosphorylation’, which covered all the exciting progress that the EDV lab has made in the first year of active research.

It was inspiring to hear from so many medicinal chemists and chemical biologists working worldwide on new, cutting-edge tools to probe biological processes, ranging from the development of novel therapeutics based on chemical probes, RNA and peptides to advancements in high-throughput proteomics. On the whole, the conference was a fantastic opportunity to make new connections within the international chemical biology community and learn about fascinating new areas of research, and it was great to explore beautiful Basel too!

More information on the EFMC-ISCB 2025 is available via their website here: https://www.efmc-iscb.org

Elena and Tara’s next conference outing will be to the 14th International Activity Based Protein Profiling Meeting (ABPP 2025) in London in March – do get in touch if you plan to attend, and we look forward to presenting more of our research there!

EDV

Elena awarded Best Flash Presentation Award at AICBBM-1 in Perugia

A fantastic gathering of Chemical Biologists and beyond took place this year in the lovely city of Perugia for the first Anglo-Italian Chemical Biology Bilateral Meeting (AICBBM-1).

The conference was organised in collaboration by the Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Chemistry (CBBG) interest group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Italian Chemical Society (SCI), with the organisation being led by Prof Claudio Santi (University of Perugia), with the help of Dr Manuela Tosin. The meeting took place between 15th and 17th December 2024, gathering >100 participants not only from Italy and the UK but also Greece, Colombia, Canada, USA and Poland.

The rich scientific programme covered a broad spectrum of topics in Chemical Biology, ranging from Biomaterial Engineering all the way to Drug Discovery. Elena presented a flash talk presentation of her work on covalent inhibitors of the small GTPase Rab27 and a poster detailing the ongoing research interests in the EDV group.

As the cherry on top of what has been a fantastic meeting for the ChemBio community, Elena was awarded the RSC Medicinal Chemistry best flash presentation award. Congratulations to the group for this achievement!

Photo Credits to Maria Laura Belladonna and Chiara Suvieri.

EDV

Celebrating the first year of the group with new members!

As our research group reaches its first anniversary, we are happy to welcome three new members that join us from the end of September 2024.

Welcome to Diego, a third year BSc student studying Biochemistry, who will work with us for his final research project, learning how to purify a protein phosphatase and characterise its activity with biochemical assays.

Welcome to Azzah, a fourth year MSci student in Biochemistry, who joins us for her research project, where she will study systems to evaluate induced proximity modalities like PHOSTACs.

Welcome to Soumiah, a fourth year MSci student in Biochemistry, who joins us to acquire skills in organic synthesis, helping us develop our covalent approaches for targeting phosphatases.

To celebrate the newcomers and the group anniversary, we enjoyed lunch near the canal close to our Mile End campus and were blessed by a nice and sunny Autumn day. We had a cozy atmosphere and enjoyable food, with nice vibes at our table. Looking forward to do science with this great bunch!

EDV

Royal Society Research Grant award to study PHOSTACs

The EDV Lab is incredibly excited to share that we have been awarded a Royal Society Research Grant to support our ongoing efforts in the development of covalent PHOSTACs for applications in cancer therapy! It is the first major external funding of the group and a fantastic start for 2024.

This award will enable the purchase of specialised equipment such as a plate reader with high specs for absorbance, fluorescence and luminescence. Access to this apparatus is pivotal to developing our novel small molecules as well as elucidating the mechanism of action of inducers of proximity, including PHOSTACs. Stay tuned for updates on these and more applications.

We are very grateful to the Royal Society for supporting our research!

EDV

Tara joins the group as the first PhD student

The year starts with a fantastic piece of news for the EDV lab: Tara joins us today to embark on a journey of chemical biology for protein phosphatases!

Tara will be based in our laboratory space in the JP Building on Mile End campus. Her PhD thesis will be co-supervised by Prof Viji Draviam. Tara brings an excellent background for the project and we are looking forward to seeing her developing as a scientist in the next years.

A warm welcome to Tara, exciting times ahead!

EDV

EDV Lab at Queen Mary, now online!

We are happy to share the start of our research journey as we set up the lab and everything that goes with it…

Since last September, you can find Elena in the Joseph Priestley Building on Mile End Campus. Her office is the 6th door on the left of the ground floor corridor. She has also an official door plate now – special thanks to our School Building Manager, Sam!

…just a ‘knock’ away!