WEHI Special New Medicines and Diagnostics division Seminar hosted by Dolores Arenas Cavero

Daniel J. Blair PhD
Assistant Member – St Jude Faculty, Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Fragmentation-First Experimentation

L3C Seminar Room | Bundoora large boardroom

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

High-throughput chemical synthesis is transforming the data landscape for optimizing small molecules, yet these large-scale campaigns outpace the capabilities of conventional analytical techniques. Consequently, new approaches are needed to reduce cycle times while maintaining data quality. Here, we introduce a “fragmentation-first” strategy which generalizes the analysis of small organic molecules in microtiter plate formats – transforming chemical reaction analysis from minutes to milliseconds. Uninhibited by synthetic access we show how high-throughput chemical synthesis seamlessly integrates with in vitro assays to prioritize functional small molecules.

Dr Daniel Blair specializes in automated and modular chemical synthesis. He completed both his MSci and PhD with Varinder Aggarwal at the University of Bristol, UK, working on lithiation-borylation methodology. This was followed by a postdoc at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Martin D Burke which centered on automated chemical synthesis, and was supported by a Damon-Runyon Fellowship. In August 2022, he became a part of the St Jude faculty, as an Assistant Member in the Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics. His lab focusses on the advancement of high-throughput technologies for creating and comparing small molecules in biological contexts.

All Welcome!