WEHI Special Ubiquitin Signalling Seminar hosted by Dr Ngee Kiat (Jake) Chua

Tania J. González-Robles

HHMI Gilliam Fellow, PhD Candidate - NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Institute for System Genetics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Department of Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, USA

Integrated Pan-cancer Proteogenomic Analysis of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System

Davis Auditorium (please note speaker will be online)

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Protein degradation is a vital cellular process that ensures proper function and homeostasis, with the Ubiquitin Proteasome System (UPS) playing a central regulatory role. E3 ubiquitin ligases, key enzymes within the UPS, confer substrate specificity by marking target proteins for degradation. In cancer, disruptions in the UPS can drive tumor progression and therapy resistance. Tania’s research delves into the role of the UPS in cancer, aiming to uncover new strategies for targeted protein degradation as potential therapies. Leveraging large-scale proteogenomics data from the Clinical Proteomics and Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), combined with computational and molecular biology approaches, Tania investigates UPS protein expression profiles, differentially expressed UPS proteins and their associations with mutational landscapes in cancer. Her work also includes developing an interactive R Shiny app called UbiDash to share these findings with the broader research community.

Tania is an HHMI Gilliam Fellow and a PhD candidate in Computational Biomedicine and Cell Biology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, co-mentored by Professor Michele Pagano and Dr. Kelly Ruggles. She received her BS in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she contributed to the development of cytochrome c nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery strategies in cancer (Griebenow Lab). After graduation, she spent time working at the Molecular Science Research Center in Puerto Rico, where she helped develop nanocellulose composites for bone regeneration (Nicolau Lab). She later joined MIT Biological Engineering and the MIT Koch Institute to help elucidate mechanisms of carcinogenesis (Essigmann Lab), genetics of cancer progression in the lung (Jacks Lab) and therapy resistance in leukemias (Hemann Lab). In the Ruggles Lab, Tania became a member of the NIH CPTAC consortia leveraging pan-cancer multi-omic information to study the UPS with an emphasis on E3 ubiquitin ligases in close collaboration with the Pagano Lab. Tania is on track to complete her PhD by September 2025 and is actively seeking academic postdoctoral opportunities in Computational Biology. Tania’s computational skills in bioinformatics and experimental skills have been demonstrated successfully, evident in contributions to publications in eLife, Nature Cancer, Cell and Cancer Cell.

All Welcome!