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The group of Professor Ed Tate in the Department of Chemistry has established a collaboration with Pfizer Inc. through a 2-year research agreement

The collaboration is designed to advance the use of chemical probes to study a special class of around 100 enzymes in human cells called the deubiquitinases, or DUBs, to better understand their role in disease.

The body has a natural mechanism for recycling, or degrading, proteins as a way to remove waste and enable continued growth and development. DUBs are a critical part of this process because they help determine which proteins get degraded and which ones are rescued from degradation, including proteins involved in disease pathways.

The Tate lab has , facilitating measurement of DUB activity in living cells. This new collaboration aims to develop a detailed understanding of DUB activity, with the potential to provide new insights into their role in disease and uncovering potential new drug targets.