With great enthusiasm, C&CB is pleased to announce that Dr. Mikail Abbasov and Dr. Erin Stache will both be joining the faculty as Assistant Professors in July 2020.
Dr. Abbasov is coming to Cornell from The Scripps Research Institute where he is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow focused on the development of activity-based chemoproteomic platforms to discover and study druggable lysines in the human proteome in Prof. Ben Cravatt’s research group. Before his time at Scripps, 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. The Abbasov Lab will advance likewise 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.
Dr. Stache is continuing her tenure at Cornell following a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in Prof. Brett Fors’s research group where she worked on new methods of polymerizations. Before her time at Cornell, Erin finished her PhD research with Prof. Abigail Doyle and Prof. Tomislav Rovis, leveraging photoredox catalysis to develop new synthetic methods for C–O bond activation. Erin is a synthetic chemist focused on uniting areas of synthetic organic chemistry, photochemistry, inorganic materials, and polymer chemistry for new applications in materials science and synthesis. The Stache Lab will apply advanced methods in catalysis to develop new polymerization strategies to access polymers with unique material properties. Identification of monomers to access new materials and ultimately study potential applications will be a key focus. Additionally, her research will focus on polymer sustainability, such as developing new methods for degradable polymers. Despite the sophistication of methods to prepare such commodity polymers like polyethylene and polystyrene, strategies to re-purpose these materials at their end of life lag far behind. Identification and development of polymer degradation methods will be another key focus of research.
