Structural Chemical Molecular Design

The completion of the Human Genome Project brought new challenges in biomedical research. Knowledge obtained through classical genetic and biochemical approaches has been augmented by a wealth of genomic and proteomic data generated by novel technologies.

New experimental and computational approaches are required to integrate and interpret these data properly in order to gain a molecular understanding of fundamental biological mechanisms and to design small-molecule probes that can perturb biological pathways in informative and potentially therapeutic ways. 

Mount Sinai’s training area in Structural Chemical and Molecular Design (SMD) is at the interface of two naturally allied fields: structural biology and chemical biology.

Structural biology is an established area of modern biology with an extensive history at Mount Sinai. It focuses on the elucidation of macromolecular structure and function through X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, cryo-electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and biophysical studies of single molecules.

Chemical biology is an emerging discipline encompassing traditional aspects of medicinal and bio-organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biophysics, enhanced by recent advances in genetics, genomics, and proteomics.

Studying the interactions of small molecules with the whole genome, or with specific genotypes, defines chemical genetics. The field of chemical genetics is represented within SMD by research opportunities in the areas of signal transduction, gene expression, cell proliferation, and the epigenetic regulation of genome structure and function.

Both structural and chemical biology integrate experimental and computational methods, so that experimentation is guided by theory and vice versa. Molecular computational biology and bioinformatics are therefore strongly represented in SMD.