Faculty

Dr. Haitao (Mark) Ji

External Graduate Affiliate Faculty (Moffitt Cancer Center)
Associate Professor

Contact

Office: MRC 4047
Phone: 813/745-8070
Email: Haitao.Ji@moffitt.org 
Website:  

Education

  • B.S., Second Military Medical University
  • Ph.D., Second Military Medical University
  • Postdoc, Northwestern University, USA (Advisor: Richard B. Silverman)

Research

Dr. Ji鈥檚 research is Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology. The lab鈥檚 efforts are mainly focused on the rational design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of drug-like small molecules that can modulate cellular signaling pathways with an emphasis on protein鈥損rotein interactions (PPIs) and target specificity. Four critical lab components include protein structure-based drug design, multiple-step synthesis, and molecular and cellular biology. In general, the research in the Ji lab has two directions. One is the development of new tools/techniques to design potent and selective small-molecule inhibitors for the PPIs of interest. The second is the application of new tools to designing selective PPI inhibitors for clinically highly relevant signaling pathways and characterizing the biological activities of new inhibitors using biochemical and cell-based assays. Our goal is to use multidisciplinary approaches to tackle fundamental problems associated with human diseases, and translate the fundamental scientific findings into biomedical and biotechnological applications.

Dr. Ji accepts new graduate students from the Department of Chemistry. The lab is located in H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. Graduate students in the Ji lab expect to receive training in rational drug design, synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, and molecular and cell biology.