Jack Taunton: Therapeutic targets, druggable sites, and biological insights through direct chemoproteomic profiling

Event details Date: Thursday, August 27, 2026 Time: 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM Location: 125 Li Ka Shing Center Type: Lecture / Workshop About this event Most covalent drugs are designed by appending an electrophile (“warhead”) to a structurally defined noncovalent ligand. Nearly all covalent medicines target a catalytic nucleophile or a reactive (noncatalytic) cysteine. Many potential drug targets, however, lack druggable cysteines. An exciting but daunting challenge in covalent drug discovery is to target lysine or tyrosine, which are more prevalent yet less reactive than cysteine. In this talk, I will describe our efforts to develop chemical probes and a “direct chemoproteomics” platform, with the goal of expanding the covalently druggable proteome. Through direct chemoproteomic profiling, we have discovered complementary chemical probes and targeted sites, leading to new biological insights. Division(s): MTx (Molecular Therapeutics) Official event details: https://events.berkeley.edu/live/events/324233-mtx-seminar