John E. Moses

John Edward Moses (born January 10, 1975) is a Welsh organic chemist and is currently Professor of Click Chemistry at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). In 2020, he established the first synthetic organic chemistry research group at CSHL, where he leads the click chemistry research group and Chemistry for Biology program. He is a member of the CSHL Cancer Center (NCI designated). He is known for his work on the development and application of Click Chemistry and Biomimetic Synthesis. 
==Education and Training==
Originally from Rhosllanerchrugog, Wrexham, North Wales, Moses graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Bath, having spent one year at Purdue University. Thereafter, he undertook a DPhil in the Biomimetic Synthesis of Complex Natural Products under Professor Sir Jack Baldwin, FRS, at the University of Oxford. In 2004, he moved to The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla (USA), to work with Nobel laureate Professor K. B. Sharpless on the development of click chemistry.
==Career==
In 2005, Moses was awarded a RCUK-EPSRC Fellowship in Cancer Medicinal Chemistry and took up a position at the School of Pharmacy, University College London. In September 2007, he was appointed Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Nottingham and was promoted to Reader and Associate Professor in 2011. In 2017, he moved to Australia to take up the position of Chair of Organic Chemistry at La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science. Moses joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in September 2020, as CSHL’s first Professor of Click Chemistry. The Click Chemistry Laboratory occupies a state-of-the-art chemistry laboratory in the newly refurbished Demerec building.
In addition to his own research activities, Moses has spent significant time helping to build institutes in the developing world. In 2011, he was appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, where he mentored scientists at the female college of chemistry. In 2012, Moses helped to establish the “Amity Institute for Click Chemistry Research and Studies (AICCRS),” at Amity University, India. He is currently the honorary Chairman of AICCRS.
==Research==
Moses has spent his independent research career developing new click chemistry reactions and biomimetic strategies for complex natural product synthesis. His group exploits these technologies to discover functional molecules, such as chemical probes, materials, and drug-like biologically active molecules.
During his time at the School of Pharmacy, University College London, he pioneered the application of Click Chemistry in anticancer drug discovery, developing the first therapeutic DNA binding 1,2,3-triazole ligands that interact selectively with the G-quadruplex regions of the telomere. These ligands demonstrate significant selectivity for quadruplex structures over duplex DNA. Moses later developed the first fragment-based Click Chemistry approach synthesis of inhibitors of lactate dehydrogenase-5 (LDH5),an essential metabolic enzyme that is crucial for the survival of tumor cells, particularly those in an oxygen-starved environment known as the Warburg effect. Additionally, Moses has combined his expertise in Biomimetic Synthesis and Click Chemistry in other ways, leading to the discovery of several potent anticancer and antibiotic agents.
Since 2016, Moses has helped to develop a new click reaction class called Sulfur-Fluoride Exchange (SuFEx). He has established several new click reactions, including SuFEx mediated synthesis of hindered amides, multidimensional click chemistry and late-stage SuFEx synthesis of fluorinated ligands. In 2020, Moses reported a new method for drug discovery named Diversity Oriented Clicking (DOC). DOC exploits a combination of classical “Click” transformations with distinct SuFEx hubs (e.g., SASFs), enabling the rapid synthesis of structurally diverse molecular libraries for biological screening. The DOC method has led to the discovery of two new drug classes, including a potent antibiotic that overcomes bacterial resistance mechanisms and a new family of microtubule-disrupting anticancer agents that are effective against aggressive and otherwise drug-resistant cancer cell lines. In 2022, Moses and his team established an improved SuFEx protocol, coined Accelerated SuFEx Click Chemistry (ASCC), which allows rapid lead discovery and drug analog optimization. Moses’ laboratory collaborates with several teams worldwide (UK, China, Australia), including several colleagues at CSHL.
In addition, Moses has served as a research mentor of over 20 graduate students for their Ph.D. dissertation and more than 22 postdoctoral researchers at five educational institutes (UK, Australia, USA), including, since September 2020, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
==Professional Memberships, Honors, and Awards==
Professional Memberships
2021 – Present	Member, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
2015 – 2015 	Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
1997 – 2015 	Member, Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
2000 – Present 	Member, American Chemical Society (ACS).
Honors and Awards
2021 	Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 Organic Division Horizon Prize: Robert Robinson Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry
2020 	Foreign 1000 talent plan, Chinese Central Government (declined)
2017–2021	Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
2015 	Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)
2012 	Honorary Chairman and Professor, Amity University, Noida, India
2011 	Distinguished Visiting Professor, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2011 	Thieme Chemistry Journal Award 2011
2010 	United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland Lilly Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry
2005 	United Kingdom Research Councils Early Career Fellowship
==Major Publications==
* Moorhouse AD, Santos AM, Gunaratnam M, Moore M, Neidle S, Moses JE. Stabilization of G-quadruplex DNA by highly selective ligands via click chemistry. J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Dec 20;128(50):15972-3. doi: 10.1021/ja0661919. PMID: 17165715.
* Moorhouse AD, Haider S, Gunaratnam M, Munnur D, Neidle S, Moses JE. Targeting telomerase and telomeres: a click chemistry approach towards highly selective G-quadruplex ligands. Mol Biosyst. 2008 Jun;4(6):629-42. doi: 10.1039/b801822g. Epub 2008 Apr 8. PMID: 18493662.
* Lombardo CM, Martínez IS, Haider S, Gabelica V, De Pauw E, Moses JE, Neidle S. Structure-based design of selective high-affinity telomeric quadruplex-binding ligands. Chem Commun (Camb). 2010 Dec 28;46(48):9116-8. doi: 10.1039/c0cc02917c. Epub 2010 Oct 29. PMID: 21038041. 
* Li S, Li G, Gao B, Pujari SP, Chen X, Kim H, Zhou F, Klivansky LM, Liu Y, Driss H, Liang DD, Lu J, Wu P, Zuilhof H, Moses J, Sharpless KB. SuFExable polymers with helical structures derived from thionyl tetrafluoride. Nat Chem. 2021 Sep;13(9):858-867. doi: 10.1038/s41557-021-00726-x. Epub 2021 Aug 16. PMID: 34400816.
* Manzi L, Barrow AS, Scott D, Layfield R, Wright TG, Moses JE, Oldham NJ. Carbene footprinting accurately maps binding sites in protein-ligand and protein-protein interactions. Nat Commun. 2016 Nov 16;7:13288. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13288. PMID: 27848959.
* Manzi L, Barrow AS, Hopper JTS, Kaminska R, Kleanthous C, Robinson CV, Moses JE, Oldham NJ. Carbene Footprinting Reveals Binding Interfaces of a Multimeric Membrane-Spanning Protein. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2017 Nov 20;56(47):14873-14877. doi: 10.1002/anie.201708254. Epub 2017 Oct 20. PMID: 28960650.
* Jenner M, Kosol S, Griffiths D, Prasongpholchai P, Manzi L, Barrow AS, Moses JE, Oldham NJ, Lewandowski JR, Challis GL. Mechanism of intersubunit ketosynthase-dehydratase interaction in polyketide synthases. Nat Chem Biol. 2018 Mar;14(3):270-275. doi: 10.1038/nchembio.2549. Epub 2018 Jan 8. PMID: 29309054.
Category:1975 births
Category:Alumni of the University of Bath
Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford
Category:Welsh chemists
Category:Professors