Abstract

Pharmacology Seminar Series: Easter PDRA Talks

This comprises two 15-minute talks:

Speaker: Dr Camilla Ascanelli – Wilson lab

Title: Destroying MYC: Engineering Biological Degraders for Rapid Tumour Cell Death

Abstract: MYC transcription factors are central regulators of cell growth and proliferation and are deregulated in the majority of human cancers. However, their intrinsically disordered structure has made them resistant to conventional small-molecule targeting, earning MYC the label of “undruggable”. In collaboration with AstraZeneca, we applied targeted protein degradation (TPD) to overcome these limitations. While small-molecule PROTACs against MYC have been reported, they often lack specificity, achieve inefficient degradation, and can generate functional truncated protein products, limiting their utility for both therapeutic and mechanistic studies. To address this, we developed biologics-based PROTACs (bioPROTACs) that enable efficient and specific degradation of MYC. Using these tools, we demonstrate robust MYC depletion in vitro and in vivo, and reveal distinct cellular responses compared to MYC inhibition, providing new insights into MYC biology and its therapeutic targeting.

Bio: Cami is a postdoctoral researcher in Cathy Wilson’s lab. Her work focuses on developing RNA-delivered biologics for targeted protein degradation, with a particular interest in MYC-driven cancers. In collaboration with AstraZeneca, she has been developing bioPROTAC approaches to selectively degrade MYC, using these tools to probe the cellular consequences of acute MYC loss. Her research aims to translate biologics-based degradation strategies into clinically relevant approaches.

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Speaker: Dr Nick Schaum, Khaled Group

Title: Ageing in the Age of AI

Abstract: Ageing is by far the dominant risk factor for all of the most common diseases like cancer, heart disease, and dementia, yet the molecular landscape of ageing remains poorly mapped, preventing the development of therapeutics that could prevent or delay multiple diseases simultaneously. No single lab or institution can solve this alone — it demands coordinated global effort, and public-good infrastructure that the whole community can build on. The NMGN Ageing Cluster addresses this by generating a multiomic and phenotypic atlas across the mouse lifespan: two strains, four timepoints, longitudinal phenotyping, and spatial transcriptomics. But new data alone is insufficient — millions of relevant datasets already exist, scattered across public repositories in forms neither humans nor machines can readily use. Covalent.bio tackles this by building an AI-powered semantic layer over existing biological repositories, standardising metadata at global scale and making the existing corpus of transcriptomic data ML-ready. These represent two sides of the same strategy: producing the foundational data the field needs, while unlocking the vast wealth of data it already has.

Biography: Nick is a postdoc in the Khaled lab where he runs the National Mouse Genetics Network Ageing Cluster. Before coming to the UK, he built the first organism-wide single-cell atlas of ageing called Tabula Muris Senis at Stanford with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and the nonprofit Rejuvenome Project at the Astera Institute. In his free time he works on his startup Covalent.bio.