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The Ansari Lab is collaborating with multiple colleagues at St. Jude to target a wide range of genomic loci with synthetic DNA binding molecules. The synthetic team further benefitted from the active engagement in 2021 with a visiting Fulbright Scientist, Prof. Jaisankar Parasuraman, who brought a lifetime of experience as a chief scientist and chair of medicinal chemistry at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology. Together the team has rationally designed and synthesized an array of promising synthetic genome readers and regulators (SynGRs) that are already providing unprecedented chemical control over target gene regulation. In parallel, the prototype SynGR, named SynTEF1, is maturing as a potential therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia. 

The Fischer Lab published eight papers in 2021. Shanshan Bradford’s article “Temperature Artifacts in Protein Structures Bias Ligand-Binding Predictions” was been picked up by several news outlets and landed on the cover of Chemical Science. Fatemeh Keramatnia, PharmD, PhD, a joint student with the Chemistry Centers, received an Alma and Hal Reagan Fellowship for her graduate work on Targeted Protein Degradation. In August, they welcomed a new postdoc Sarah Young to the lab. Sarah will drive the structural biology of the Crazy8 initiative that explores small molecule degraders for targeting transcription factor drivers of childhood cancers. Finally, the lab receive major NIH funding for an R35 MIRA grant on “Exploiting Water Network Perturbations in Protein Binding Sites”.