>

Seminar Series

students in a lecture hall listening to a person speak

The VICB seminar series is a course in the Chemical and Physical Biology (CPB) Program - CPBP 8310 (Graduate Seminar in Chemical Biology). All seminars take place on Wednesdays at 12:15 PM in 1220 MRB III.

Fall 2026

  • bill tansey headshot

    November 4

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Bill Tansey, Vanderbilt University

    Targeting the MYC–WDR5–Ribosome Axis for Cancer Therapy

  • Eranthie Weerapana headshot

    November 11

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Eranthie Weerapana, Boston College

    Chemoproteomic strategies to investigate reactive cysteines

    *cosponsored by the Department of Chemistry

  • Jie Sun headshot

    December 2

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Jie Sun, University of Tennessee - Knoxville

    Mass Spectrometry-based Structural Biophysics of Membrane Proteins: From Method Development to Biomedical Applications

Spring 2027

  • headshot of Paegel

    January 13

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Brian Paegel, University of California - Irvine

  • smith headshot

    January 20

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Jeremy Smith, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    *cosponsored by Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence in Protein Dynamics

  • Skiniotis headshot

    January 27

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Georgios (Yiorgo) Skiniotis, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

  • Eisenbarth headshot

    February 3

    12:15PM 1220 MRB III

    Stephanie Eisenbarth, Northwestern University

  • Hannunl headshot

    February 10

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Yusuf Hannun, Stony Brook University

    *cosponsored by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

  • Drigo headshot

    February 17

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Rafael Arrojo e Drigo, Vanderbilt University

  • Hornberger headshot

    March 3

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Keith Hornberger, Arvinas

  • Sattely headshot

    March 17

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Elizabeth (Beth) Sattely, Stanford University

    *cosponsored by Department of Chemistry

  • Xu headshot

    April 7

    12:15PM 1220 MRBIII

    Hua Xu, AstraZeneca

  • Alto headshot

    May 11

    TBD

    Neal Alto, University of Texas - Southwestern

    *Hosted by Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation, cosponsored by VICB

Past Seminar Speakers

  • Fall 2026
    • Binghe Wang, Georgia State; Studying the Puzzle of Reactive Oxygen Species: One Piece at a Time
    • Wei Lü, Northwestern University; Temperature reshapes TRPM4 channel gating and pharmacology *cosponsored by the Vanderbilt Brain Institute
    • Tingwei Mu, Case Western Reserve University; Adapting proteostasis to correct GABAA receptor misfolding diseases *cosponsored by the Center for Structural Biology
    • F. Ulrich Hartl, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry; Molecular Chaperones in Protein Folding and Proteome Health *organized by BCHM; cosponsored by VICB
    • Manajit Hayer-Hartl, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry; Into the Heart of Photosynthesis: Unraveling Rubisco’s Cellular Machineries*organized by BCHM; cosponsored by VICB
    • Danica Fujimori, University of California - San Francisco; Nascent Peptide Recognition by the Ribosome-Targeting Antibiotics
    • Ming Hammond, University of Utah; Studying bacterial signaling and antibiotic activity in real-time in live cells
    • Bill Tansey, Vanderbilt University; Targeting the MYC–WDR5–Ribosome Axis for Cancer Therapy
    • Eranthie Weerapana, Boston College; Chemoproteomic strategies to investigate reactive cysteines *cosponsored by the Department of Chemistry
    • Jie Sun, University of Tennessee - Knoxville; Mass Spectrometry-based Structural Biophysics of Membrane Proteins: From Method Development to Biomedical Applications
  • Summer 2026
    • Clifton Barry III, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Development of MK-7762: a safe oxazolidinone for the treatment of all forms of tuberculosis
  • Spring 2026
    • Caroline Proulx, North Carolina State University; New Strategies for Peptide Mimicry and Late-Stage Functionalizations
    • Michael Villalobos, Vanderbilt University; CTTC – Accelerating Vanderbilt’s Innovation Ecosystem
    • Amber Teufel, co-hosted with Sydney McKee, Procter and Gamble; Behind the Brands: How Chemical Biologists Shape P&G’s Future
    • Daniel Herschlag, Stanford University; From Structure-Function to Ensemble-Function: A New Paradigm for Quantitative Understanding of Protein Function
    • Joseph Jez, Washington University in St. Louis; Two Stories from Plant Natural Product Biosynthesis: One Sweet and One Bitter
    • Robert Coffey, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Doubling Down On DPEP1
    • Richard E. Lee, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Fighting Intrinsic Resistance in Mycobacteria
    • Kevin Gardner, The City College of New York; Harnessing Nature’s Switches for Our Medicines and Tools: Structural Studies of Environmental Sensor Proteins
    • Emily Leproust, Twist Bioscience; Write, Read, Heal: The Convergence of NGS and Synthetic Biology in Next-Gen Therapeutics Research
  • Fall 2025

     

    • Chaitan Khosla, Stanford University; Chemical Biology of Celiac Disease
    • Christian Melander, University of Notre Dame; Small Molecule Approaches to Disarming Antibiotic Resistance Mechanisms
    • Mohammad Seyedsayamdost, Princeton University; Natural Product Antibiotics: Past, Present, Future, Co-sponsored by the Department of Chemistry
    • Tobin Sosnick, The University of Chicago; The Relationship Between Protein Function and Structurally Resolved Energetics Measured Using Hydrogen Exchange
    • Yan Zhang, Zhejiang University, China; GPCR Exoframe Modulators: From de novo design to applications, Co-sponsored by the Department of Pharmacology
    • Danette Daniels, Foghorn Therapeutics, Inc.; Towards new cancer medicines with degraders of chromatin regulatory proteins
    • Mei Hong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Deconstructing and Reconstructing Tau by Solid-State NMR
    • Ben Brown, Vanderbilt University; A Generalizable Deep Learning Framework for Structure-Based Protein-Ligand Affinity Ranking
    • Alex Waterson, Vanderbilt University; Expanding the E3 ligase toolkit using fragment-based methods