WEHI PhD Completion Seminar hosted by Professor Grant Dewson, Dr Mark van Delft & Professor Guillaume Lessene

Kaiming Li

PhD Student – Dewson Laboratory, Ubiquitin Signalling division – Healthy Development & Ageing Theme, WEHI

Drugging BAK and BAX

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIphdcompletion

Including Q&A session

Followed by refreshments in Tapestry Lounge

Kaiming Li is a 4-year PhD student in the Dewson Lab, supervised by Grant Dewson, Mark van Delft and Guillaume Lessene. Kaiming graduated in 2019 with interests in cell death and small-molecule therapeutics.

Venetoclax, a drug that inhibits BCL-2 and indirectly unleashes the effector proteins BAK and BAX to initiate apoptosis, is highly effective for treating some blood cancers. However, acquired resistance to venetoclax has emerged and highlights the need for new approaches that target apoptosis more effectively. One strategy is to directly enhance the activity of BAK and/or BAX.

Conversely, over-activation of apoptosis is observed in various degenerative conditions including brain injury and heart failure. Whether pharmacologic inhibition of apoptosis may be beneficial as a therapeutic strategy in this context is unclear, due to the lack of potent and specific small-molecule inhibitors of BAK and/or BAX.

Kaiming has critically assessed putative BAK- and/or BAX-targeting compounds. Following this, he characterised the mechanism of action of new WEHI compounds that modulate BAK and BAX. This research provides new insight into the molecular control of apoptosis and lays the foundation for developing next-generation apoptosis-modulating therapies.

All welcome!