The Marmorstein laboratory uses a broad range of molecular, biochemical and biophysical research tools centered around X-ray crystal structure determination to understand the chemical basis for the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. The laboratory is particularly interested in gene regulatory proteins and their upstream signaling kinases that are aberrantly regulated in cancer and other age-related disorders such as obesity and Alzheimer’s disease, and the use of high-throughput small molecule screening and structure-based design strategies towards the development of protein-specific small-molecule probes of protein function and for development into therapeutic agents.

Dr. Marmorstein obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago and, following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, joined the faculty at The Wistar Institute in 1994. Dr. Marmorstein is currently the Hilary Koprowski, M.D. Professor and Program Leader in Gene Expression and Regulation at The Wistar Institute and holds adjunct appointments as Wistar Institute Professor of Chemistry and Wistar Institute Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania.

1 - Liszzczak, G., Arnesen, T. and Marmorstein, R. Structure of a Ternary Naa50p (NAT5/SAN) N^α-Terminal Acetyltransferase Complex Reveals the Molecular Basis for Substrate Specific Acetylation. (2011) J. Biol. Chem. In press.

2 - Tang, Y., Holbert_,M.A.,Delgoshaie, N., Wurtele, H., Guillemette, B., Meeth, K., Yuan, H., Drogaris, P., Lee, E-H., Durette, C., Thibault, P., Verreault, A., Cole, P.A. and Marmorstein, R. “Structure of the Rtt109-AcCoA/Vps75 complex and implications for chaperone-mediated histone acetylation.” (2011) Structure 19, 221-31. PMID 21256037

3 - Feng, L., Geisselbrecht, Y., Blanck, S., Wilbuer, A., Atilla-Gokcumen, G.E., Filippakopolulos, P., Kraling, K., Celik, M.A. Harms, K., Maksimoska, J., Marmorstein, R., Frenking, G., Knapp, S., Essen L.O. and Meggers, E. Structurally sophisticated octahedral metal complexes as highly selective protein kinase inhibitors. (2011) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 5976-86. PMID 21446733

4 - Bowers E.M., Yan, G., Mukherjee, C., Orry, A., Wang, L. Holbert, M.A. Crump, N.T., Hazzalin, C.A., Liszczak, G., Yuan, H., Larocca, C., Saldanha, S.A. Abagyan, R., Sun, Y., Meyers, D.J. Marmorstein, R., Mahadevan, L.C., Alani, R., Cole, P.A. “Virtual ligand screening of the p300/CBP histone acetyltransferase: Identification of a selective small molecule inhibitor” (2010) Chemistry & Biology, 17, 471-82. PMID 20534345

5 - Sanders, B.D., Jackson, B., Brent, M., Taylor, A.M., Dang, W., Berger. S.L., Schreiber, S.L., Howitz. K and Marmorstein, R., “Identification and characterization of novel sirtuin inhibitor scaffolds.” (2009), Bioorganic Medicinal Chem., 17, 7031-41. PMID 19734050

6 - Brent, M.M., Iwata, A., Carten, J., Zhao, K. and Marmorstein, R. “Structure and biochemical characterization of protein acetyltransferase (PAT) from Sulfolobus Solfataricus.” (2009) J. Biol. Chem. 284, 19412-9. PMID 19473964

7 - Malecka, K.A., Ho, W.C. and Marmorstein, R. “Crystal structure of a p53 core domain tetramer bound to DNA.” (2009) Oncogene 28, 325-33. PMID 18978813 – PMC2629805

8 - Xie, P., Williams, D.S., Atilla-Gokcumen, G. E., Milk, L., Xiao, M., Smalley, K.S.M., Herlyn, M., Meggers, E., and Marmorstein, R. “Structure-based design of an organoruthenium Phosphatidyl-Inositol-3-Kinase inhibitor reveals a switch governing lipid kinase potency and selectivity.” (2008) ACS Chem. Biol. 3, 305-16. PMID 18484710

9 - Tang, Y., Holbert_,M.A.,Wurtele, H., Meeth, K., Rocha, W., Gharib, M., Jiang, E., Thibault, P., Verreault, A., Cole, P.A. and Marmorstein, R. “Fungal Rtt109 histone acetyltransferase is an unexpected structural homolog of metazoan p300/CBP.” (2008) Nature Struc. Mol. Biol. 15, 738-45. PMID 18568037

10 - Tang, Y., Meeth, K., Jiang, E., Luo, C. and Marmorstein, R. “Structure of Vps75 and implications for histone chaperone function.” (2008) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105, 12206-11. PMID 18723682