Host: Professor Yao Shaoqin

Speaker: Dr Ru-Yi Zhu

Ru-Yi received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Peking University in 2013. His thesis, “Transition-metal-mediated C‒O and C‒H activation reactions”, was completed under Prof. Zhang-Jie Shi’s supervision. He obtained his doctoral degree from The Scripps Research Institute in 2018, with Ph.D. thesis, “Palladium-catalyzed diverse C(sp3)‒H activation reactions enabled by ligand and directing group design”, under Prof. Jin-Quan Yu. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Chemistry, ChEM-H Institute, and Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University, working on chemical biology of DNA, RNA, and associated proteins for cancer therapeutics, with Prof. Eric T. Kool. Ru-Yi’s research integrates state-of-the-art synthetic organic chemistry with molecular biology to validate therapeutic targets, identify potential small-molecule anti-cancer drugs, and develop molecular tools for cancer early diagnosis.

Abstract:

Despite tremendous efforts and progress in combating cancer over the last few decades, many cancers remain undiagnosable at early stage and difficult-to-treat. More than 10 million people die from cancer each year worldwide. In this talk, I will discuss how to creatively design molecules in chemistry and biology to advance cancer therapeutics.  I will describe how to develop highly useful C‒H activation reactions by designing novel ligands and directing groups and how these synthetic methods can potentially accelerate early anti-cancer drug discovery. I will then focus on targeting an important DNA repair enzyme MUTYH for targeted cancer therapy by designing activity-based fluorescent probes and applying the probes with high-throughput screen (HTS) to identify small-molecule modulators. Lastly, I will demonstrate how to use the probes to diagnose MUTYH-associated polyposis (MAP) which is a genetic disorder that causes a range of cancers.

Register here in advance using your NUS email account to attend this seminar.