Welcome to the Arrowsmith Lab
We are an interdisciplinary lab studying the structure, function and chemical modulation of proteins involved in epigenetics and nuclear signalling – cellular mechanisms that are disrupted in cancer and other diseases. We use structural biology and chemical biology approaches to understand how transcriptional and chromatin regulatory proteins recognize, interact with and signal to other molecular components of the cell.
In conjunction with the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), we are using our protein structural information to develop new chemical genetic tools to define, perturb and manipulate essential functions of proteins involved in methylation dependent signalling. In this regard, our lab is involved in developing potent, selective and cell-active inhibitors of methyltransfeases, and proteins that recognize and bind to methylated proteins and nucleic acids.
We are using these "chemical probes" to study the roles of their target proteins in normal biology and to assess their therapeutic potential in human disease, including cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.
