We’re proud to share that our contribution to the collaborative study led by Prof. Michael Erb’s lab entitled, “High-throughput ligand diversification to discover chemical inducers of proximity” has been published in Nature Chemical Biology.

In this work, we joined forces with an outstanding interdisciplinary team to implement a high-throughput small-molecule ligand diversification strategy, expanding thousands of analogs of known binders to systematically explore and discover chemical inducers of proximity (CIPs) such as molecular glues. By coupling sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange (SuFEx) chemistry with phenotypic degradation screens, we identified new compounds that selectively recruit the CRL4^CRBN E3 ubiquitin ligase to previously untargeted protein partners—opening new avenues in proximity pharmacology. Our lab’s contribution centered on troubleshooting a challenging C–N coupling using Pd(COD)(DQ).

Huge congratulations to all authors and collaborators! This publication highlights an exciting platform for discovering next-generation chemical modulators of biology. Stay tuned as additional work from this and other chemical biology collaborations from the lab.

🧪 Original preprint on BioRxiv (September 2024): https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.30.615685v1

📄 Read the paper in Nature Chemical Biology: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-025-02137-2