Daniel Dempsey, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

The mission of Prof. Dempsey's lab is to understand the basic biological mechanisms of proteins that are essential to human health and disease. The lab focuses on investigating the structure, function, and regulation of proteins involved in cell signaling, epigenetics, and gene regulation. Prof. Dempsey and his team use chemical, semi-synthetic, biophysical, and cellular approaches to elucidate mechanisms for how post-translational modifications regulate protein function. They are also interested in advancing new chemical strategies to investigate PTMs and protein function.

Prof. Dempsey's current focus is on understanding the function and regulation of deubiquitinases and RNA-modifying proteins, which are emerging as attractive therapeutic targets in several cancers. Their work will shed light on the mechanistic consequence of PTMs, and how dysregulation of these proteins may lead to disease. The team's goal is that these findings will pave the way for the rational design of new therapies for the treatment of cancer.

Publications

  • Published 3/28/2026

    Guo W, Carretero Santos L, Yee Koh G, Malamy M, Hawley A, Beachy H, Whelpley B, Wang J, Dempsey DR, Crott JW. Identification and characterization of a lipopolysaccharide binding, anti-inflammatory protein from Parabacteroides distasonis. Gut Microbes. 2026 Dec 31; 18(1):2650007. PMID: 41904604.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 3/10/2023

    Iwase R, Dempsey DR, Whedon SD, Jiang H, Palanski BA, Deng B, Cole PA. Semisynthetic Approach to the Analysis of Tumor Suppressor PTEN Ubiquitination. J Am Chem Soc. 2023 Mar 22; 145(11):6039-6044. PMID: 36897111.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 12/24/2022

    Viennet T, Rodriguez Ospina S, Lu Y, Cui A, Arthanari H, Dempsey DR. Chemical and structural approaches to investigate PTEN function and regulation. Methods Enzymol. 2023; 682:289-318. PMID: 36948705.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 10/8/2021

    Dempsey DR, Viennet T, Iwase R, Park E, Henriquez S, Chen Z, Jeliazkov JR, Palanski BA, Phan KL, Coote P, Gray JJ, Eck MJ, Gabelli SB, Arthanari H, Cole PA. The structural basis of PTEN regulation by multi-site phosphorylation. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2021 10; 28(10):858-868. PMID: 34625746.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 1/20/2021

    Jiang H, Dempsey DR, Cole PA. Ubiquitin Ligase Activities of WWP1 Germline Variants K740N and N745S. Biochemistry. 2021 02 09; 60(5):357-364. PMID: 33470109.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 30 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Websites

Education

  • University of South Florida, PhD
  • State University of New York at Oswego, MS
  • State University of New York at Oswego, BA

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