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Faculty Profile

Alexander StatsyukAlexander V. Statsyuk

Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry
Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Office: 
University of Houston College of Pharmacy
Health 2, Room 7037
4349 Martin Luther King Boulevard
Houston, TX 77204-5039

Contact: avstatsyuk@uh.edu - Office: 713-743-9616 - Fax: 713-743-1884

Research:

Research projects in the Statsyuk laboratory use chemistry to illuminate mechanisms of human diseases, and to develop novel therapeutic modalities to treat them. Our research group is highly interdisciplinary and encompasses chemistry, protein & structural biochemistry, enzymology, cell biology, pharmacokinetics, and drug discovery. The research projects are highly collaborative in nature. Our drug discovery efforts focus on developing ultra-selective and ultra-potent drugs that affect only disease tissues but not normal tissues, and therefore have no side effects. Ultra-selectivity is achieved by designing drugs that target specific disease mutations, by targeting specific receptors present in the disease cells, by using ternary pharmacology approaches (i.e. designing drugs that bind the receptor with the help of the disease tissue specific helper proteins), antibody-drug conjugates, natural products, as well as covalent protein and small molecule drugs. Specific projects are as follows (more details can be found in my LinkedIn profile):

  1. Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Ubiquitin System.
  2. Covalent drug discovery technologies.
  3. Covalent protein drugs.
  4. Treating protein misfolding diseases.
  5. Ternary pharmacology to drug the undruggable.
  6. Antibody-drug conjugates.
  7. Targeting cancer genes and signaling networks using FBDD and natural products.
  • Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  • Diploma in Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

Google Scholar Profile
  • Covalent-Fragment Screening of BRD4 Identifies a Ligandable Site Orthogonal to the Acetyl-Lysine Binding Sites, Michael D. Olp, Daniel J. Sprague, Christopher J. Goetz, Stefan G. Kathman, Sarah L. Wynia-Smith, Shifali Shishodia, Steven B. Summers, Ziyang Xu, Alexander V. Statsyuk, Brian C. Smith, ACS Chemical Biology, 2020, 15(4):1036-1049
  • LiF-MS: Mapping unstructured peptide-protein interactions using Ligand-Footprinting Mass Spectrometry, Parker, B.; Goncz, E.; Krist, D.T.; Statsyuk, A.V.; Nesvizhskii, A.I.; Weiss, E. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, 116 (42): 21001-21011.
  • UbMES and UbFluor: Novel Probes For RBR E3 Ubiquitin Ligase PARKIN. Park, S.; Foote, P.K.; Krist, D.T.; Rice, S.E.; Statsyuk, A.V. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2017, 292 (40):16539-16553.
  • Dissecting the Specificity of Adenosyl Sulfamate Inhibitors Targeting the Ubiquitin-Activating Enzyme. Misra, M.; Kuhn, M.; Löbel, M.; An, H.; Statsyuk, A.V.; Sotriffer, C.; Schindelin, H. Structure 2017, 25(7):1120-1129.e3.
  • UbFluor: A Mechanism-Based Probe for HECT E3 Ligases. Krist, D.T.; Park, S.; Boneh, G.; Rice, S.; Statsyuk, A.V. Chemical Science 2016, 7, 5587-5595.
  • A Small Molecule That Switches a Ubiquitin Ligase From a Processive to a Distributive Enzymatic Mechanism. Kathman S.G.; Span I.; Smith A.T.; Xu, Z.Y.; Zhan J.; Rosenzweig A.C.; Statsyuk, A.V. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2015, 137 (39):12442-12445.
  • Catalytically Important Residues of E6AP Ubiquitin Ligase Identified Using Acid-Cleavable Photo-cross-linkers. Krist, D.T.; Statsyuk A.V. Biochemistry 2015, 54 (29), 4411-4414.
  • A Fragment-Based Method to Discover Irreversible Covalent Inhibitors of Cysteine Proteases. Kathman, S.G.; Xu, Z.Y.; Statsyuk, A.V. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2014, 57 (11), 4969-74.
  • Development of Activity-Based Probes for Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-Like Protein Signaling Pathways. An, H.; Statsyuk A.V. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2013, 135 (45), 16948-16962.
  • Mechanism-Based Small Molecule Cross-Linkers of HECT E3 Ubiquitin-Ligase Substrate Pairs. Park, S.; Ntai, I.; Thomas, P.; Konishcheva, E.; Kelleher, N.L.; Statsuk, A.V. Biochemistry 2012, 51(42), 8327-8329.

Awards & Honors

  • Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences (2012)