Glue for Cancer Patients: Suyuan Chen Wins Merck Innovation Cup 2021
Suyuan Chen, a doctoral student in the Proteomics research group, won the Merck Innovation Cup 2021 with his »drug discovery technologies« team. Together with six other junior scientists from Israel, Canada, London and Munich, he has worked out a plan on how molecular glue can be created and used even better in cancer treatment in the future. These small molecules stabilise an interplay between proteins that normally hardly interact. In this way, researchers can glue disease-causing proteins to others, which the body then destroys. The doctoral students and postdocs from the disciplines of biochemistry, (structural) biology, chemical proteomics and medicinal and organic chemistry are not allowed to talk publicly about the details of their idea. Merck has taken up the winning idea in order to pursue it further within the group. “I am not only happy about the win, but especially that our idea could help advance drug development for cancer therapies,” says Chen. His unusual career path led doctoral student Suyuan Chen from China to Dortmund – and to application-oriented basic research. At ISAS, he develops chemical tools for analyses.
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ANNUAL REPORT 2021
