Channing J. Der Annual Career Symposium

Join us for the Channing J. Der Annual Career Symposium featuring three guest speakers from different career paths.

This event is an opportunity for graduate and postdoctoral students to listen to presentations and ask questions about research career paths.

Registration for attending in-person will close Friday, April 26th, 2024, 11:59pm.

Registration

Speakers

Tikvah Hayes, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCLA

Dr. Tiki Hayes completed her undergraduate degrees at the University of California, San Diego, double majoring in animal physiology & neuroscience and history. She performed undergraduate research in the laboratory of Dr. Tomas Mustelin at the Burnham Institute and was a technician at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Kolodner prior to her graduate training. Dr. Hayes received her Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she studied the effects of ERK inhibition in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer under the guidance of Dr. Channing J. Der. Dr. Hayes completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Matthew Meyerson at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute. She leveraged high-throughput genetic screening approaches to 1) understand mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies and 2) identify variants of unknown significance. Dr. Hayes is currently an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology. The Hayes lab applies high-throughput genetic screening, novel assay development, molecular biology, and inhibitor sensitivity/resistance analyses to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying human cancers and resistance to targeted therapies.

Matthew Calabrese, PhD, Head of Structural and Molecular Sciences, Pfizer

Following an undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Matthew Calabrese completed a Ph.D. in the department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale.  He then transitioned to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Brenda Schulman studying the structure and mechanism of E3 ubiquitin ligases.  After his postdoc (in 2011), Dr. Calabrese took a position as a Senior Scientist in Structural Biology at Pfizer providing experimental (crystallographic) support for several small molecule drug discovery programs. He then progressed to Principal Scientist and Senior Principal Scientist roles within the same group before moving into a supervisory role as a lab head leading a small team.  In 2020, Dr. Calabrese became the Senior Director and Head of Structural and Molecular Sciences, a department that provides structural biology, biophysics, and biochemistry support for Pfizer’s East Coast small molecule portfolio and vaccines.  Key areas of focus for the group include structure-based drug design (Xray and CryoEM), fragment screening, target engagement, and mechanism of action studies as well as large molecule (antigen) design.

Sujata Chakraborty, PhD, Senior Scientist I, REVOLUTIONS Medicines

Dr. Sujata Chakraborty received her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, under the direction of Dr. Dustin J. Maly. There she studied allosteric regulation of protein kinases and ways of designing highly selective and potent kinase inhibitors. As a Postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Alan Saghatelian’s lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, she developed tools to study transient protein-protein interactions. Dr. Chakraborty has always been passionate about translational research that can have immediate and significant effects on patients’ lives. Therefore in 2021, she joined the clinical-stage precision oncology company, Revolution Medicines (RevMed) as a Scientist in the Department of Cancer Biology. RevMed, is focused on developing novel targeted therapies to inhibit elusive frontier targets within notorious growth and survival pathways, with particular emphasis on RAS and associated signaling pathways. The company has several drugs in its portfolio in Phase I-II clinical trials. At RevMed, Dr. Chakraborty works on multiple developmental as well as exploratory projects. As a Senior Scientist, she develops and deploys tools and assays vital to drug development and validation of new cancer targets.