The Pomerantz lab is a chemical biology group at the University of Minnesota. Our interdisciplinary research uses a wide range of techniques including organic synthesis, bioanalytical chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology for studying the function of transcription factors involved in disease. Our primary goal is to discover small molecules which we can synthesize in the laboratory to modulate the function of protein-protein interactions involved in transcription, with the ultimate goal of developing new chemical probes for understanding the biology of these proteins.
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Not pictured: Jackie
Our Research: Our overarching goal is to discover new ways to inhibit protein-protein interactions (PPIs) involved in transcription. Our research seeks to understand the molecular level details of transcription factor-protein interactions and epigenetic complexes which control how our genetic information is expressed. At the same time, we use chemistry to design synthetic molecules that disrupt the dysregulated forms of PPI communication to further understand the underlying biology and treat disease. We apply NMR and MRI, to visualize biomolecular interactions, and use small molecules that we synthesize in the laboratory to perturb the protein function. Students and postdocs working in this area are exposed to broad training in organic synthesis, protein biochemistry, fragment-based drug design and additional applied biophysics techniques to validate our 19F NMR approach.
Given that transcription factors represent a major class of potential drug targets and the demand for structural methods to characterize them, our biomolecular 19F NMR approach for transcription factor-PPIs could significantly increase the repertoire of new targets and open up new paths forward for small molecule discovery.
Lab News
Lab News
Rishabh Wins Poster Award
Rishabh Wins Poster Award
April 21, 2025
Rishabh Sen won a poster award for his BPTF N-degron PROTAC project at the 2025 Cornell University x Ithaca College Chemistry Undergraduate Research Symposium. Rishabh is an undergraduate at Ithaca College who worked with Chun-Ju Tsou in summer 2024 and is actively collaborating back at his home university. On the right is Rishabh presenting at his poster. Congratulations, Rishabh!
Richard Wins Epigenetics Flash Talk Competition
Richard Wins Epigenetics Flash Talk Competition
December 19, 2024
Richard Ede won first place in the Annual Epigenetic Consortium Flash Talk Competition with his presentation "Development of Targeted Covalent Inhibitors (TCIs) of PCAF as a Possible Treatment for HIV and Brain Cancer." Congratulations, Richard!
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