Overview
Neel Shah is an Assistant Professor in Department of Chemistry at Columbia University.
He received his B.S. in Chemistry from New York University in 2008, where he worked with Kent Kirshenbaum on the synthesis and structural characterization of peptidomimetics. Neel received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from The Rockefeller University in 2013, where he worked with Tom Muir investigating the structure and activity of split inteins, a class of enzymes that catalyze protein ligation reactions. Neel did his postdoctoral research in John Kuriyan's laboratory at UC Berkeley. There, he developed new high-throughput methods to probe the functions of cell signaling proteins. Neel joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2018. The Shah Lab takes a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate cell signaling enzymes, combining synthetic organic chemistry, classical biochemical and biophysical methods, and high-throughput biochemistry.
He received his B.S. in Chemistry from New York University in 2008, where he worked with Kent Kirshenbaum on the synthesis and structural characterization of peptidomimetics. Neel received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from The Rockefeller University in 2013, where he worked with Tom Muir investigating the structure and activity of split inteins, a class of enzymes that catalyze protein ligation reactions. Neel did his postdoctoral research in John Kuriyan's laboratory at UC Berkeley. There, he developed new high-throughput methods to probe the functions of cell signaling proteins. Neel joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2018. The Shah Lab takes a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate cell signaling enzymes, combining synthetic organic chemistry, classical biochemical and biophysical methods, and high-throughput biochemistry.
Academic Appointments
- Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Gender
- Male
Credentials & Experience
Education & Training
- PhD, The Rockefeller University
- BS, New York University
Honors & Awards
- 2021, RCSA Scialog Fellow (meeting topic: Chemical Machinery of the Cell)
- 2021, Lenfest Junior Faculty Development Award (Columbia University A&S)
- 2019, Lenfest Junior Faculty Development Award (Columbia University A&S)
- 2018-2020, Damon Runyon Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists
- 2014-2018, Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship
Research
Research Interests: Protein structure and function, Chemical biology, Cell signaling, Tyrosine kinases, Tyrosine phosphatases
The Shah lab interested in understanding molecular mechanisms in cell signaling, with particular focus on enzymes that phosphorylate and dephosphorylate tyrosine residues on proteins as a means of relaying information within cells. These enzymes, known as protein tyrosine kinases and protein tyrosine phosphatases, constitute two large families of roughly 100 proteins that play crucial roles in normal physiology and are often dysregulated in diseases such as cancers and immunological disorders. As a result, these enzymes are important drug targets. We integrate chemical approaches with high-throughput biochemical assays, biophysical methods, and cell biology to pinpoint (1) how individual members of these enzyme families have specialized to mediate signal transduction with fidelity, (2) how the dysregulation of phosphotyrosine signaling leads to disease states, and (3) how we might exploit this information to guide the development of novel therapies.Selected Publications
- Cassandra A. Chartier, Virgil A. Woods, Yunyao Xu, Anne E. van Vlimmeren, Marko Jovanovic, Ann E. McDermott, Daniel A. Keedy, Neel H. Shah*. “Allosteric regulation of the tyrosine phosphatase PTP1B by a protein-protein interaction.” [preprint] bioRxiv 2024, DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.16.603632
- Ziyuan Jiang, Anne E. van Vlimmeren, Deepti Karandur, Alyssa Semmelman, and Neel H. Shah*. “Revealing the principles of inter- and intra-domain regulation in a signaling enzyme via scanning mutagenesis.” [preprint] bioRxiv 2024, DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.13.593907.
- Anne E. van Vlimmeren†, Rashmi Voleti†, Cassandra A. Chartier, Ziyuan Jiang, Deepti Karandur, and Neel H. Shah*. “The pathogenic T42A mutation in SHP2 rewires the interaction specificity of its N-terminal regulatory domain.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2024, 121(30) e2407159121.
- Suk ho Hong†, Sarah Y. Xi†, Andrew C. Johns, Lauren C. Tang, Allyson Li, Madeleine N. Hum, Cassandra A. Chartier, Marko Jovanovic, and Neel H. Shah*. “Mapping the chemical space of active-site targeted covalent ligands for protein tyrosine phosphatases.” ChemBioChem 2023, 24(10), e202200706.
- Allyson Li, Rashmi Voleti, Minhee Lee, Dejan Gagoski, and Neel H. Shah*. “High-throughput profiling of sequence recognition by tyrosine kinases and SH2 domains using bacterial peptide display.” eLife 2023, 12:e82345.