Claudio A Joazeiro, Ph.D.

website: www.joazeirolab.com

See lab website: www.joazeirolab.com

Role of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in cellular regulation and disease

E3 ubiquitin ligases are the components that confer specificity to the ubiquitin system. Consistent with their critical role in cellular regulation, mutations affecting E3s can cause human disease—as illustrated by the cases of BRCA1 in breast cancer and of Parkin in Parkinsonism. Our laboratory is engaged in three main areas of research related to E3s:

1] We are interested in elucidating E3s’ function and mechanisms. For this purpose, we utilize cell and molecular biology approaches with mammalian cells, mice and yeast; our expertise is complemented by close collaborations on structural biology, bioinformatics, mass spectrometry, next-generation sequencing, and fly models;

2]We utilize the information we learn from the above studies to develop assays that are amenable to high-throughput screening, which are then used to identify small molecule inhibitors of E3 ligases. Such compounds can then be both turned into tools to interrogate biology, and developed as pharmaceutical drug candidates;

3] We collaborate with clinicians to translate our basic research findings into therapeutically-relevant discoveries.