Proteases, the enzymes that cleave proteins, play essential roles in a wide variety of cellular processes. They are mostly translated as inactive zymogens and once activated, their activity is tightly regulated by various post-translational processes. Therefore, tools to specifically tag and monitor the active forms are of pressing need for the functional study of proteases. My lab takes an interdisciplinary approach using synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology and proteomics to shed light on biomedically relevant proteases.

In this presentation, I will discuss some of our recent efforts in the synthesis and application of activity-based probes for proteases, in particular neutrophil serine proteases and the SARS-CoV2 main protease. In addition, I will discuss our efforts in the use of cleavable linkers for target identification of small molecules by photoaffinity labeling, exemplified by probes for aspartic proteases.

Prof. Dr. Steven Verhelst, Laboratory of Chemical Biology, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, KU Leuven - University of Leuve, and Leibniz Institute for Analytical Science ISAS, Dortmund, Germany - https://www.verhelstlab.net/team/

Streaming is available via: https://chemie.univie.ac.at/fakultaetskolloquium