Congratulations Dr. Chen!!

Congratulations in the utmost to Dr. Andrew Chen, who successfully defended his thesis this week!!

Dr. Chen was the first graduate student to join the Koehler lab at the Koch Institute at MIT and is the first to meet the full requirements for the PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT from our group. His thesis, entitled Discovery and Characterization of a Small Molecule that Modulates c-Myc Mediated Transcription via Max Homodimer Stabilization, detailed his work in the development of our newly published chemical probe, KI-MS2-008, and the exciting work he pioneered to understand the impact of this molecule on MYC/MAX networks and transcriptional regulation.

Congratulations on a job well done!!

New paper on our Max-directed chemical probe is out in Cell Chemical Biology!

We are very excited to finally share in long-form the story of KI-MS2-008, a Max-directed small molecule probe that attenuates Myc-driven transcription, which is now available for download at Cell Chemical Biology!

This work has been a highly collaborative team effort—originating in the work of many Koehler lab alumni and affiliates; greatly enhanced by the contributions of collaborators at Stanford University, Baylor College of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and championed by lead authors Nick Struntz and Andrew Chen. We are grateful to the team and extend congratulations to all!

Graphical abstract from our most recent publication on KI-MS2-008 in Cell Chemical Biology.

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For a non-technical description of this project and its impact, please see our feature on MIT News.

For the short form specifications on the chemical probe and its discovery, please see our new pages for KI-MS2-008 and Max on our probe and target pages, respectively.

To request access to the compound, please visit our contact page.
The compound is not currently available from commercial sources; however, we intend to make the probe available to any colleagues unable to synthesize the molecule who wish to leverage the molecule for their own studies.

Welcome Yulong, Julie, and Florian!

The start of the new year brought three new faces to our team. The lab is pleased to welcome Dr. Yulong Su, Julie Urgiles, and Florian Kabinger!

Yulong received his PhD in in cancer biology from Oregon Health & Science University in 2017. His thesis work was conducted under Dr. Rosalie Sears and detailed previously uncharacterized mechanisms of c-Myc regulation through post-translational modifications that affect localization to the nuclear pore basket. He will be joining the MYC-focused team, where his knowledge of c-Myc biology will be a welcome addition.

Welcome, also, to Julie, a medical student in the Harvard-MIT Health Science & Technology (HST) program.  Julie received a B.S. in Chemistry from Cornell in 2017 and will join our group for the research portion of her training. She will be joining the existing team focused on oncogenic transcription factors in prostate cancer, where she will leverage her skills in synthetic organic chemistry to enable target engagement studies for small molecule probes in development against some of our favorite targets.

And, lastly, welcome, Florian! Florian is a visiting masters students from the University of Applied Sciences in Austria, supported by Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Fellowship. He brings expertise in molecular biology and biochemistry techniques, which both the adenoid cystic carcinoma team and the prostate cancer team are delighted to fold into ongoing mechanism of action studies for chemical probes currently in development.

Welcome, all!

Congratulations Shelby!

Congratulations to Shelby Doyle for winning the first annual Peter Karches Mentorship Prize.

This prize, newly established in memory of the late Peter Karches, is awarded to up to four postdocs or graduate students in recognition of the important role trainees play in the mentorship of high school and undergraduate students working in KI laboratories.

Congratulations, Shelby!

Karches Prize winners (left to right): Peter Westcott, Kim Nguyen, Shelby Doyle, Amanda Whipple. Photo taken from the Koch Institute news page.

Congratulations to Brice!

Dr. Brice Curtin has been named as a Convergence Scholar through the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine and the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine Convergence Scholars Program.

“The Convergence Scholars Program (CSP) provides postdoctoral trainees opportunities to further their experiences and skills beyond the research laboratory. Scholars will learn more about science project development by approaching it from various angles, including policy and regulations, technology transfer, education and outreach, business and finances, industry, and the clinic.”

Congrats, Brice!

2019 CSP Class (left to right): Brice Curtin (Koehler Lab), Leslie Chan (Bhatia Lab), Sean Smith (Hammond Lab), Padmini Pillai (Langer Lab), Neelkanth Bardhan (Belcher Lab), Sharanya Sivanand (Vander Heiden Lab, front row), Pau Creixell (Yaffe Lab, back row), Piotr Kowalski (Anderson Lab), and Hannah Watkins (Irvine Lab). Photo taken from CPCM webpage.

Koehler Lab featured in MIT's Spectrum

In the latest issue of MIT’s Spectrum magazine, which focuses on the Kendall Square ecosystem, Dr. Koehler is interviewed for a piece on the biotech start-up’s fueling the area. Read more here!

Cover art from this quarter’s edition. Illustration by Marcus Martinez SM ’12.

Kronos Bio opens shop at Lab Central!

In order to translate the work our group has been pursuing over the past decade into the clinic, the Koehler Lab is excited to share that late last year Dr. Koehler co-founded the company Kronos Bio. 

Kronos, through a partnership with Two River, has assembled a top-notch launch team and secured an excellent space in LabCentral, the shared laboratory for biotech innovation space down the street from our group at the Koch Institute. Under the recently announced leadership of Dr. Norbert Bischofberger, the Kronos team will be leveraging the small molecule microarray (SMM) platform and extensive know-how in biological assay development to pursue novel therapies against some of the most important and intractable targets in cancer research.

Koehler Lab at AACR Annual Meeting 2018

The Koehler Lab--old and new members--was in attendance at this year's AACR Annual Meeting in Chicago. 

Dr. Koehler chaired an educational session for the Chemistry in Cancer Research (CICR) working group "From Chemistry to the Clinic: Part 1 - Chemical Probes for Identifying and Validating Drug Targets." Members of the group focused on targets in prostate cancer were able to attend to gain exposure to advances and discoveries across multiple disciplines represented at the meeting. They were also able to catch up with old pals--an important part of the chemistry that goes into good science.

Graduate student Shelby Doyle with former Koehler Lab research scientist Marius Pop and postdoc's André Richters and Helen Evans taking a Cab into town between sessions.