Overview
Mikail is a chemical biologist developing new chemistries to understand how mutations and post-translational modifications modulate protein function and cause disease. Mikail completed an M.S. degree in optical physics at the Kilgore Research Center before undertaking doctoral work with Daniel Romo at Texas A&M University in synthetic organic chemistry. With Romo, Mikail developed novel Diels-Alder-initiated organocascades that he applied to the total synthesis of complex natural products. His postdoctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute with Ben Cravatt focused on the development of activity-based chemoproteomic platforms to discover and study druggable lysines in the human proteome.
Research Focus
Prof. Abbasov's highly interdisciplinary program at Cornell will advance innovative chemoproteomic technologies to modulate the function of proteins and interrogate signaling pathways associated with cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Specific focuses include rescuing disease-causing mutant proteins with small molecules, targeting therapeutically vulnerable mutations in genetically defined cancers, and identifying the druggable ribonucleoproteome with lysine-reactive natural products.