Hydrolases are enzymes that often play important roles in many common human diseases such as cancer, asthma, arthritis, atherosclerosis and infection by pathogens. Therefore tools that can be used to dynamically monitor their activity can be used as diagnostic agents, as imaging contrast agents and for the identification of novel classes of drugs. In the first part of this presentation, I will describe our efforts to design and synthesize small molecule probes that produce a fluorescent signal upon binding to tumor associated protease targets.

Abstract