Robert Batey
Professor & Associate Chair of Graduate Affairs University of Colorado Boulder
Dr. Batey is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he has been since 2001. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997 with Professor Jamie Williamson and was a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow at Yale University with Professor Jennifer Doudna between 1997 and 2001. His research team was the first to reveal the structural basis for small molecule binding by a naturally-occurring regulatory element called a riboswitch, and since they have studied the structural and mechanistic basis for mRNAs binding diverse small molecules. Currently, the Batey laboratory is leveraging these biological systems to understanding how diverse chemical space productively interacts with RNA. Prof. Batey has also served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several companies exploiting small molecule-RNA interactions including BioRelix, Expansion Therapeutics, MieraGTx and Mol Horizon.
Seminars
The chemical space explored for RNA-targeted small molecules remains relatively narrow and heavily influenced by existing patents, public datasets, and legacy screening collections. While these efforts have produced important advances, they have also concentrated discovery around a limited set of chemical frameworks and design principles. As more organizations pursue splicing modulation, RNA degradation, translational control, and direct RNA binding, there is growing interest in identifying chemical matter that extends beyond familiar RNA-targeted chemotypes while remaining productive, interpretable, and actionable for discovery.
This workshop will bring together medicinal chemists, computational chemists, screening scientists, chemical biologists, and RNA drug discovery leaders to discuss how the field can broaden RNA-focused chemical space.
Topics for discussion include:
- Examining where current RNA-targeted chemistry is concentrated across patents, public datasets, commercial libraries, and internal collections
- Exploring how chemically diverse yet information-rich chemical spaces can improve both hit discovery and the extraction of actionable design principles
- Comparing chemical requirements across splicing modulation, RNA degradation, translational inhibition, and direct RNA binding
- Discussing how molecular glue degrader thinking could inspire new approaches to RNA or protein depletion
- Evaluating how public structures, shape-based searching, cheminformatics, and AI can support broader chemical exploration
- Riboswitches provide unique opportunities to systematically explore how RNA productively interacts with a broad chemical space
- Combining in vitro binding, cell-based assays, chemoinformatic modeling and structue-based design, we unmasked a cryptic binding site within the cobalamin riboswitch that was exploited to discover compounds that have affinity exceeding the native ligand
- Our data demonstrate how a privileged biphenyl-like scaffold effectively targets RNA and how other chemistries can be harnessed to achieve high-affinity interactions
