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Purpose

The Chemical Biology Core (CBC) is comprised two functional units: the Chemistry Division and the Structural Biology Division. The primary purpose of the Chemistry division is to assist, identify and optimize chemical probes and new lead compounds that may benefit both biochemical mechanistic studies and drug discovery & development. The primary purpose of the Structural Biology division is to assist with experiments related to protein purification, binding characterization, and structure determination. The two divisions work together to provide complementary approaches for identifying novel therapeutic targets and anti-cancer agents.

Equipment

  • Bruker 500 MHz NMR and cryoprobe
  • Biotage Initiator 8 Microwave Reactors
  • H-Cube Continuous-Flow Hydrogenation Reactor
  • Agilent G3250AA LC-MSD TOF Mass Spectrometer
  • Agilent 6120 single quadrupole MS
  • 1220 infinity LC system (HPLC-MS)
  • Biotage V-10™ evaporation system
  • Isolera Flash Chromatography Systems
  • Radleys Parallel Reaction Stations and Radleys Green House Synthesizer
  • Agilent Single Quadrupole LC/MSD XT
  • 2.5–14 L Fermentor
  • Cell Homogenizer
  • MicroCal-iTC200
  • Monolith NT.115 microscale thermophoresis
  • Envision multi-label multi-well plate reader
  • StepOnePlus DSF instrument
  • GE AktaPure FPLC
  • Eppendorf epMotion liquid handling system
  • STP Labtech Mosquito crystallization robot:
  • MicroMax-007HF micro-focus X-ray diffraction system
  • GE Healthcare BiaCore T200 SPR Kinetics Instrument
  • Applied Biosystems QuantStudio™ 6 Flex Real-Time PCR system
  • Formulatrix crystal imaging system with crystal tray hotels

Services

  • Production of functional proteins in mg quantities for biochemical and biophysical studies; services include all steps from construct design to purification of homogenous protein.
  • Crystallization of proteins, protein-small molecule complexes, protein-protein complexes, or protein-DNA complexes, and determination their 3-dimensional structures using X-ray crystallography.
  • Structural modeling and ligand docking
  • Biochemical fluorescence/luminescence based kinase assays to obtain IC50 values
  • Quantitative binding studies of protein-ligand interactions using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), fluorescence polarization (FP), surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and/or microscale thermophoresis (MST).
  • Synthesis: Re-synthesis of hits and leads to confirm structure and purity; medicinal chemistry and focused library design and synthesis for structure-activity relationships & lead optimization; synthesis of difficult-to-obtain probes/drugs for proof-of-principle studies; synthesis of biotinylated compounds/probes for chemical proteomics studies, multi-gram scale synthesis of potent compounds for pre-clinical in vivo studies.
  • Synthesis of functional chemical probes for chemical proteomics studies for cancer target validation
  • Pro-Drug synthesis and salt formation of potent compounds for preclinical studies.
  • Analytical chemistry, solubility and stability assessments for lead compounds that are used for in vivo studies.
  • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Mass Spectrometers (HPLC-MS and TOF-LCMS) instrumentation.

Location

The Chemical Biology Core, Chemistry Division, is located in the Moffitt Research Center (MRC) on the fourth floor, room 4017. The Structural Biology Division is located in the Stabile Research Building (SRB) on the fourth floor, room 24208.

Scheduling

The CBC uses a Laboratory Information Management Suite (LIMS) located on Moffittnet for billing and usage tracking.

Publications

All publications based on work conducted in the Chemical Biology Core should acknowledge the facility. A suggested statement is found below. If a Core Staff member(s) significantly contributes or participates in a project, investigators are encouraged to consider including the individual(s) in the list of authors.

This work has been supported in part by the Chemical Biology Core at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, a comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute and funded in part by Moffitt’s Cancer Center Support Grant (P30-CA076292).     

Contacts

Scientific Directors  
Harshani Lawrence, PhD
harshani.lawrence@moffitt.org
Office: 813-745-6076

Jennifer Binning, PhD
jennifer.binning@moffitt.org
Office: 813-745-3695

Senior Staff Scientist
Timothy Tran, PhD
timothy.tran@moffitt.org
Office: 813-745-3580