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/ PROTACs, Drug Discovery and High throughput screening, Cancer Biology

Interests

Building on our expertise in covalent ligand discovery and chemical biology, the De Vita group develops chemical tools to interrogate challenging protein targets and uncover their roles in cellular function and disease. Our research sits at the interface of chemical biology, medicinal chemistry and cancer biology, with a particular interest in developing and using covalent ligands to investigate biological mechanisms that are difficult to address using conventional approaches.

A major focus of the group is the development of covalent chemical probes for challenging targets, including small GTPases and protein phosphatases. We combine structure-guided ligand discovery, chemical proteomics and cellular assays to establish target engagement, dissect protein function and uncover new mechanisms of disease biology.

Our current research interests also include chemically induced proximity approaches, such as targeted protein degradation and targeted protein dephosphorylation using bifunctional ligands that recruit protein phosphatases to specific phosphorylated proteins. We use these chemical tools not only to explore new therapeutic opportunities, but also to answer fundamental questions in cancer biology and understand how protein function and cellular signalling can be controlled with chemical precision.