Abstract: The presenter's Ph.D. in chemistry (chemical biology path) focused on harnessing peptide chemistry with structural and biophysical approaches to uncover how subtle changes in peptide architecture can be used to reshape GPCR signaling and immune signaling in useful ways. 

For his postdoctoral work, he turned his focus to proteostasis by pursuing biological characterization of small-molecule activators of autophagy discovered via a high-throughput, imaging-based screen. This public seminar will highlight some of these research findings. In his future independent lab, Russ seeks to scrutinize and therapeutically harness GPCR and kinase networks to address novel questions at the interface of chemical biology, signal transduction and drug discovery.