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Synthetic Biology for Discovery + Therapeutics
We are a research laboratory embedded in the campus of UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. Our goal is to tackle challenging problems in human health and cancer biology. We work on the diseases of triple-negative breast cancer and other difficult-to-treat cancers. We are especially interested in how these cancers interface with metabolic processes and host immunity. Our science is focused on how chromatin is made in dividing cells and how the epigenome is controlled. This has led us towards enzymes and cell surface receptors that control mammalian biosynthetic processes as cancer targets. We have a long-term goal of identifying new targets for drug development, establishing therapeutic principles and translating them to humans.
The interface of technology & health
We are particularly interested in engineering and design of cells, enzymatic reactions, and chemicals to solve problems and serve as model systems for biology and disease. We are dedicated to developing methodologies, technologies and reagents for ourselves and the scientific community at large. We seek to re-design the genome, the epigenome and immunome to derive insights about how biological systems are controlled and how they go haywire in disease.
HAT1 (2P0W) with acetyl-CoA binding site in red
Controlling Chromatin States
The Histone Acetyltransferase 1 (HAT1) enzyme provides a window on coupling metabolic and epigenetic processes
VISTA Biology
VISTA is a membrane receptor found primarily in the immune system that gets mis-expressed in human triple-negative breast cancers, and other tumor types.
We are hiring!
We are looking to build a diverse team of scientists from a variety of backgrounds. Did you train in medicine, biology, chemistry, engineering, immunology, structural biology, drug discovery? Consider applying!
Open Positions
— Research Scientist
— Graduate Student
— Medical Fellow
— Postdoctoral Scholar
— Undergraduate Researchers
— Research Volunteers
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