Our laboratory is focused on marine natural products drug discovery, and integrates synthetic medicinal chemistry, computational approaches, and molecular biology with traditional isolation of bioactive metabolites. The open position will explore structure activity relationships among an ultra-potent class of proteasome inhibitor (the carmaphycins) that we discovered from a marine cyanobacterium. These have high potential for the treatment of malaria and other parasitic diseases. The work is interfacial between our lab and others working on biological and biochemical aspects of the project.
This position is focused on the chemical synthesis of analogs of the carmaphycins, small peptides with an epoxyketone pharmacophore. This will integrate the results of biochemical and biological assays with molecular docking using MOE software, ultimately to synthesize highly effective and selective agents.
PhD in synthetic medicinal chemistry, plus good skills in NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Experience with peptide chemistry is desired.
Website - https://wgerwick.scrippsprofiles.ucsd.edu/
Email - wgerwick@ucsd.edu
