First post from the Wang Lab

We will start a new experiment by asking students and postdocs to write blogs/previews for recent papers. This would be a good practice for their critical thinking and writing skills.

Here is a pretty good eBook "English Communication for Scientists" by Dr. Jean-luc Doumont.

I hope all the trainees in the lab will not only know how to do science but also learn how to communicate their science.

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Photoswitchable azopyrazoles Flipping the Switches of Ion Channels

Abnormally activated Ca 2+ channels are related to many human diseases, including Stormorken Syndrome, which makes Ca 2+ release-activated Ca 2+ (CRAC) channel a very promising therapeutic target. Several small molecule therapeutics targeting CRAC channels have been developed, including the GSKs series and Synta 66 . Those compounds have relatively high specificity. Meanwhile, a controllable system that can be activated with a switch can probably serve as a convenient tool for further related research. Photoswitchable chemistry has been applied to a lot of bioactive targets such as ion channels, receptors enzymes and nucleic acids. Recently, the Li group developed CRAC channel inhibitors that can be turned ‘on’ and ‘off’ by UV-light exposure. Scheme 1 . C onverting CRAC channel inhibitors, GSKs , into photoswitchable derivatives, piCRACs . Starting from the well-established GSK-based CRAC inhibitor ( Scheme 1 ), the authors developed a series of nitr...

Proteosome Inhibition Taps Into RNA Splicing

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignancy of white blood cells called plasma cells that reside mainly in the bone marrow and is the second most common blood cancer. With increased understanding of biology, the current use of immunomodulatory (IM) drugs and proteasome inhibitors (PI) have taken over the therapeutic landscape for MM. The combination of bortezomib (PI) with lenalidomiede (IM) and dexamethasone is commonly the initial treatment of choice. Early intervention seems to provide a good outcome, but unfortunately, many patients eventually relapse. A major goal in MM treatment is to increase the efficacy of proteasome inhibitors and prevent relapse. To investigate this, Huang et al. used unbiased mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics to identify potential vulnerabilities after treatment with the PI carfilzomib and discovered that splicing related proteins had significant changes in phosphorylation that is undetectable upon examination of RNA and protein abundance. Treatment w...

Quantitative Chemical Biology

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