John E. Moses

John Moses’ lab specializes in click chemistry, a powerful discovery method that relies upon the most robust chemical reactions to synthesize functional molecules. Small molecules are important because Nature’s machinery, including proteins, enzymes, and receptors, evolved to interact selectively with molecular ligands, similar to how a key fits a lock.

Using click chemistry, we create molecular probes for studying biological systems that may lead to new treatments for deadly diseases, including cancer. For example, we developed a new class of therapeutic DNA binding ligand that interacts selectively with telomeric regions of the genome involved in cellular maintenance. Several of these telomere binding ligands show remarkable selectivity and potency against cancer cells and tumours.

Further developing click chemistry, we recently described a discovery method called Diversity Oriented Clicking, which exploits a focussed group of reliable click chemistry reactions to achieve structural diversity. Our Diversity-Clicking approach led to the discovery of a new group of antibiotics with activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria, including MRSA.

Through the application of click chemistry, the Moses group is committed to developing Chemistry For Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.