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Challenges for the 'chemical-systems' biologist

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As the field of chemical biology matures, its practitioners are tackling ever more sophisticated biological problems. Chemical approaches, both synthetic and analytical, provide researchers with powerful new technologies to perturb, dissect and even reconstruct complex biological systems. Here we discuss the special challenges and opportunities confronted at the burgeoning interface of chemical and systems biology.

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Figure 1: Chemical strategies to profile post-translationally modified proteins with engineered enzymes.
Figure 2: Chemoproteomic strategy to characterize the selectivity of bioactive small molecules in vivo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gabriel M. Simon & Benjamin F. Cravatt are at The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology and the Department of Chemical Physiology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. cravatt@scripps.edu,

    Gabriel M Simon & Benjamin F Cravatt

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  1. Gabriel M Simon
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Simon, G., Cravatt, B. Challenges for the 'chemical-systems' biologist. Nat Chem Biol 4, 639–642 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio1108-639

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