Welcome, Maddy!

An overdue, official welcome to Dr. Maddy Henley!

Dr. Henley received her PhD in in chemical biology from University of Michigan earlier this year. Her thesis work conducted under Dr. Anna Mapp applied an array of biophysical techniques to understand the mechanisms governing the structurally heterogeneous protein-protein interactions between transcriptional activators and coactivators. She will be joining our FUSONC team, where her knowledge of organic chemistry, biology and biophysical techniques will be instrumental to developing new probes for a variety of transcriptional targets in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma.

After a disrupted start to the year, Maddy successfully joined our team in the work-from-home world and is now fully integrated into our on site team. Welcome, Maddy!

Welcome to all of our new faces!

In the new year, the Koehler lab is very pleased to be off to the races with many new faces added to our team in the past few months.

A formal welcome to Brandon Ng and Lenya Duong, two undergraduate students joining the RNA-binding protein team with our senior graduate student, Rob, and to Will Walker, our new research associate managing our SMM platform.

And a hearty welcome back to Jasmin Krüll, a former visiting graduate student now back at as a post-doc, and to Mo Toure, a former Harvard undergraduate student researcher now back as a graduate student in the MIT BE program.

Welcome all! We’re excited to have you and to get to work!

Congratulations Dr. Doyle!

Our wonderful Shelby Doyle became the second graduate student in the lab from the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT to successfully defend her thesis, just in time for the well-earned holiday break in December of 2019!

Dr. Doyle’s thesis, entitled Modulating Oncogenic Transcription with Small Molecules, was a tour de force and emphasized various strategies to tackle AR-driven transcriptional programs. Keep an eye out for upcoming publications related to her thesis work around a selective CDK9 inhibitor and a chemical probe of the OXPHOS pathway! The lab is so proud of your accomplishments!

Shelby and Family relaxing after a job well done!

Taking a Moonshot at a rare pediatric cancer

The Koehler lab is proud to join a collaborative team involving investigators at Duke University, the Broad Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and the University of Zurich with the goal of developing tools to inform therapeutics for fusion-positive alveolar rhabsomyosarcoma. This effort is generously funded via the NCI Cancer Moonshot Initiative. You can read more about our efforts here: https://news.mit.edu/2019/taking-moonshot-rare-childhood-cancer-arms-1120

Yulong Su named a Convergence Scholar!

Congratulations to Yulong Su for being named a Convergence Scholar for the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine. Yulong’s work strives to address oncogenic transcriptional programs in a variety of cancer types, emphasizing strategies to control the protein levels of oncogenic factors such as MYC. Read more here: https://ki.mit.edu/news/2019/introducing-2019-2020-convergence-scholars

MIT CPCM 2019-2020 ConVergence Scholars

Congratulations Rob!

Congratulations to Rob Wilson for winning the second annual Peter Karches Mentorship Prize.

This prize, 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, Rob!

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.