Dr Elena De Vita

Elena De Vita

Lecturer in Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology
Lead for ECR & Research Environment

School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/staff/dr-elena-de-vita.html
Centre for Molecular Cell Biology
ORCID LinkedIn X

Research

Chemical Biology, Covalent ligands, Induced Proximity, PHOSTACs, Drug Discovery, High throughput screening

Interests

Building on a track-record in covalent drug discovery (The Future of Covalent Drugs, Discovery Report Q3, C&EN, 2022), the De Vita group aims at integrating the advantages of small molecule covalent ligands to advance novel applications in Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery. We are interested in developing novel assays and techniques to discover and optimise small molecule covalent binders for challenging targets, which have potential applications in the rising field of chemically induced proximity. Furthermore, we are constantly on the look for Chemical Biology methodologies that will enable understanding of small molecule and protein function in cells with a translational perspective.

Current research lines are focused on PHOSphorylation TArgeting Chimeras (PHOSTACs), a chemically induced proximity approach that employs bifunctional ligands to recruit a protein phosphatase (PP) in the proximity of a phosphorylated protein of interest to drive targeted protein dephosphorylation. Small molecule PHOSTACs will be developed to uncover the role of the unknown phosphoproteome, which still represents the majority of all known phosphosites profiled in humans to date. Mainly focusing on cancer research, we aim to further study the mechanism of action of PHOSTACs and develop ligands with improved pharmacological properties to explore novel therapeutic opportunities in cancer, where protein hyperphosphorylation is a well-known driver of disease.