Welcome to the Shah Laboratory

Our research focus is on developing and applying chemical tools to dissect the signaling cascades involving kinases and G Proteins superfamilies. Protein kinases are a large superfamily of signaling proteins (518 kinases predicted in human genome). Deregulated kinase activity is implicated in more than 400 human diseases including cancer, neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Our goal is to identify, characterize and validate novel kinases and other drug targets that are downstream of kinases in cancer and neurodegeneration using a combination of chemical, genetic and chemical-genetic approaches. Results from these studies have the potential to facilitate the development of specific substrate-targeted therapeutics and combination therapies.

Similarly, Guanine nucleotide binding Proteins (G-Proteins) constitute another large family of signaling proteins (>220 members) that are finely interwoven in every aspect of cellular signaling. Ras, the founding member of this superfamily, is deregulated in 30-40% of all known human cancers. We recently developed specific activators and inhibitors of engineered G Proteins for delineating their roles in various signaling cascades and for target validation.