Jun Qi

Dr. Jun Qi is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Department of Cancer Biology in Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Department of Medicine in Harvard Medical School. Dr. Qi received his BS from Fudan University in China, and obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Michigan in 2006. He then completed his postdoctoral training at MIT in 2009. Both his Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies have been focused on the total synthesis of natural compounds and the novel synthetic methodology development. Dr. Qi joined Dr. James Bradner’s laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to lead the chemistry effort as well as polished his chemical biology and biology knowledge in 2009. Dr. Qi’s study has been focusing on design and synthesis small molecule inhibitors targeting the gene regulation pathway for cancer therapy. Dr. Qi has discovered a small molecule JQ1 that inhibits one of the bromodomain subfamily, BET bromodomain, and other chemical probes, such as JQEZ5 for targeting EZH2.

Dr. Qi started his independent research group in July, 2017, and continue his research on developing chemistry, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology platforms to study a variety of biological targets and establish the understanding of their roles in cancer, including epigenetic writer, reader and eraser proteins. He leads his team successfully developed a series of inhibitors and tool compounds toward a variety of proteins as well as transcription factors. His team has also developed novel EZH2, DOT1L, KDM5 inhibitors and EP300 degraders that are now under drug development. Dr. Qi has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed papers and more than 30 patents. Dr. Qi’s studies are aimed to advance the understanding of biological targets in human disease, to develop novel chemical biology approach, and to usher novel therapeutic strategies into the clinic.