Title
Professor

Department
Dept of Chemistry
Dept of Molecular & Cell Biology
Dept of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology


Faculty URL
http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/faculty/chem/nomura

Research Group
http://www.nomuraresearchgroup.com

Email
dnomura@berkeley.edu

Phone
(510) 643-7258


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Research Expertise and Interest
chemistry, molecular and cell biology, nutritional sciences and toxicology, metabolism, chemical biology, cancer, drug discovery, chemoproteomics, metabolomics, Alzheimer's Disease, neurodegenerative disease, undruggable, natural products chemistry

Research Description
Dan Nomura is a Professor of Chemical Biology and Molecular Therapeutics in the Department of Chemistry, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in the Division of Molecular Therapeutics, and the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley and an Investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF. Since 2017, he has also been the Director of the Novartis-Berkeley Translational Chemical Biology Institute focused on using chemoproteomic platforms to tackle the undruggable proteome. He is also Co-Founder of Frontier Medicines, a start-up company focused on using chemoproteomics and machine learning approaches to tackle the undruggable proteome. He is also the Founder of Vicinitas Therapeutics based on his group’s discovery of the Deubiquitinase Targeting Chimera (DUBTAC) platform for targeted protein stabilization. He is also on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. He earned his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology and Ph.D. in Molecular Toxicology at UC Berkeley with Professor John Casida and was a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Research with Professor Benjamin F. Cravatt before returning to Berkeley as a faculty member in 2011. Among his honors include the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award, Searle Scholar, American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, and the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research ASPIRE award.
The Nomura Research Group is focused on reimagining druggability using chemoproteomic platforms to develop transformative medicines. One of the greatest challenges that we face in discovering new disease therapies is that most proteins are considered “undruggable,” in that most proteins do not possess known binding pockets or “ligandable hotspots” that small-molecules can bind to modulate protein function. Our research group addresses this challenge by advancing and applying chemoproteomic platforms to discover and pharmacologically target unique and novel ligandable hotspots for disease therapy. We currently have three major research directions. Our first major focus is on developing and applying chemoproteomics-enabled covalent ligand discovery approaches to rapidly discover small-molecule therapeutic leads that target unique and novel ligandable hotspots for undruggable protein targets and pathways. Our second research area focuses on using chemoproteomic platforms to expand the scope of targeted protein degradation technologies. Our third research area focuses on using chemoproteomics-enabled covalent ligand discovery platforms to develop new induced proximity-based therapeutic modalities. Collectively, our lab is focused on developing next-generation transformative medicines through pioneering innovative chemical technologies to overcome challenges in drug discovery.
Major Research Directions
Chemoproteomics-enabled covalent ligand discovery platforms to tackle the undruggable proteome
Expanding the scope of targeted protein degradation using chemoproteomic platforms
Discovering new induced proximity-based therapeutic modalities
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