Chemical Biology

Understanding the molecular foundation of disease using aptamers.

Aptamers are short DNA, RNA, or Peptide sequences that bind to a specific target. They rival antibodies in binding specificity and sensitivity, but offer many other advantages such as ease of synthesis, breadth of potential targets, improved storage, and lack of immunogenicity. Aptamers are typically discovered by performing several rounds of enrichment on a diverse pool of sequences to find the one molecule that binds strongest to the target.

Our lab has been working on DNA aptamer selection for the past four to five years, and have pioneered the Whole-Cell SELEX method. This method allows for the selection of aptamers against specific cell-lines to aid in biomarker discovery. To date we have selected a panel of aptamers against leukemia and lung cancer as well as against cells infected with the Vacinia virus.

Whole-Cell SELEX Scheme