molecular insight into drug mechanism of action

Structural pharmacology

A major focus of our group is to understand the mechanism of action of small molecule ligands — how they change the structure and conformational dynamics of the biological target and how this contributes to biological function. We use biomolecular NMR spectroscopy as a main structural technique, but also apply a variety of structural, biophysical, and functional approaches to determine how ligands modulate the structure and dynamics of proteins to regulate their function.

Our main targets of interest are nuclear receptors, which are drug targets for a wide range of human health diseases. We aim to understand the structural and dynamic mechanism of action of validated drugs, and we have initiated a combined structural and chemical biology approach towards orphan nuclear receptors, for which no physiological ligands are known.

We are located on the Jupiter, Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (Scripps Florida) and take advantage of the extensive expertise in chemical biology and collaborate extenstively with groups focused on drug discovery.