About the Speaker:

Bio:

Dr. Mary Kay Pflum is currently a Professor of Chemistry at Wayne State University.

Dr. Pflum received a B.A. degree from Carleton College, working with Jerry Mohrig in physical organic chemistry. In Ph.D. training at Yale University with Alanna Schepartz, she worked on several bioorganic projects focusing on phosphoproteins and transcription factors. In an NIH post-doctoral position at Harvard University with Stuart Schreiber, she worked on chemical biology and cell biology projects focusing on histone deacetylase proteins. Dr. Pflum joined the faculty at Wayne State University in 2001 with a research program at the interface of Chemistry and Biology focusing on two cancer-related proteins – kinase and histone deacetylase enzymes.

Research Interests:

Research in the Pflum group integrates organic synthesis, biochemistry, and cell biology to understand the molecular basis of disease. For many years, we have been particularly interested in two proteins associated with cancer formation- kinase and histone deacetylase enzymes. Our goal is to use a chemical approach to characterize the role of these proteins in cancers, which will lead to identification of novel drugs targeting these proteins and biomarkers to diagnose illness.