Tate group members presented their research at the 13th International Activity Based Protein Profiling Meeting at the Weizmann Institute in Israel

Drs Fangyuan Cao, Lior Soday, Elena De Vita and Janine Gray alongside Professor Ed Tate presented their research to the ABPP23 attendees, with a prize being award to Dr Fangyuan Cao for Best Poster Presentation.

Fangyuan's research focusses on deubiquitinase enzymes (DUBs) which regulate the protein recycling process in human cells. DUBs reduce the amount of proteins which are broken down into their constituent parts by the colossal proteasome system. Improper regulation of DUBs has been found to occur in many disease states, including cancer, neurodegeneration and inflammation - which makes DUBs an attractive target for therapeutic intervention.

Activity-based probes (ABPs) are a class of molecules used to investigate the role of various proteins including DUBs. However these molecules are relatively large, reducing their chances of becoming an effective drug. Fangyuan has been working on a small molecule ABP which can assess DUB activity in live cell experiments. This new probe has been effective in measuring the activity of several DUBs in different disease-relevant phenotypes.

Congratulations on your research and poster prize Fangyuan!