/ Studies, Doctorate/PhD, Events, Graduated!
Congratulations, Dr. Mota
After a bit more than four years, Pedro Mota successfully defended his thesis titled "Exploring covalent ligands for the E3 ligase substrate receptor DCAF15 as an approach for the recruitment of neosubstrates"
After inheriting a difficult project from Dr. Seemon Coomar, Pedro spend the majority of his PhD trying to reprogram DCAF15 to degrade new substrates besides RBM39. From covalent molecules, mutants with specific cystein mutations to explore - nothing really worked out in the end. Turns out, its not quite as easy as we thought, and many other groups failed, too, but discovered other interesting things, such as DCAF16-related BRD4 degradation.
And so did Pedro.
One of his molecules showed an interesting phenotype (the cells died mainly with this molecule - not the others). He identified potential candidates and narrowed it down to a single one.
The project now lives on with Irina Zhirkina and Giula Mancini on a good track, and Pedro successfully defended his thesis.
Herzliche Glückwünsche, Dr. Mota! Wir werden dich vermissen!