Faculty

Matthew D. Disney

Matthew Disney Assistant Professor
Office: 657 Natural Sciences Complex
Phone: (716) 645-4242
Fax: (716) 645-6963
E-mail: mddisney@buffalo.edu
Lab website: http://prof.dr.disney.googlepages.com/
Information on the Disney Research Group

Education:

B. S. Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park (1997)
M. S. Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY (1999)
Ph.D. Biophysical Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY (2002)
Postdoctoral Fellow Organic Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland (2002-2005)
Roche Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2003-2005)

Awards and Honors:

Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award (2005)
James D. Watson Investigator Award (2006)
Cottrell Scholar Award (2008)

Specializations:

RNA folding
Developing therapeutics that target RNA
High throughput screening - Two Dimensional Combinatorial Screening
Chemical Microarrays
Genetic Disease

Research Summary:

The Disney Laboratory is generally interested in developing a chemical code to enable the rational and modular design of small molecules targeting RNA. We use this chemical code to target RNAs that are involved in diseases such as cancer, and a host of inherited diseases, and bacterial and viral infections. We also have interests in developing microarray technologies as general platforms in drug discovery through using them to develop cell-specific ligands and antibiotics that evade resistance.

Selected Recent Publications:

Disney, MD and Childs-Disney, JL. Using Selection to Identify and Chemical Microarray to Study the RNA Internal Loops Recognized by 6' Acetylated Kanamycin A. ChemBioChem, (2007), 8, 649-656.
Childs-Disney JL, Wu M, Pushechnikov A, Aminova O, and Disney MD. A Small Molecule Microarray-Based Method to Select RNA Internal Loop-Ligand Interactions. ACS-Chemical Biology, (2007), 2, 745-754.
Disney MD and Barrett OJ. An Aminoglycoside Microarray Platform to Directly Monitor and Study Resistance. Biochemistry, (2007), 46, 11223-11230.
Disney MD and Childs-Disney JL. "Supra"molecular Recognition of Galectin-1. Chemistry & Biology, (2007), 14, 1095-1097.
Disney MD. Book Review: Biochips as Pathways to Drug Discovery. Edited by Andrew Carmen and Gary Hardiman. ChemMedChem, (2008), 3, No. 02, 363.
Childs-Disney, JL and Disney, MD. A Simple Method to Increase the Information Density in Sequencing Experiments Used to Deconvolute Nucleic Acid Selections. RNA, (2008), 14, 390-394.
Disney MD, Labuda LP, Paul DJ, Poplawski SG, Pushechnikov A, Tran T, Velagapudi SP, Wu M, and Childs-Disney JL. Two-Dimensional Combinatorial Screening Identifies Specific Aminoglycoside-RNA Internal Loop Partners. Journal of the American Chemical Society, (2008), 130, 11185-11194.
Barrett OJ, Pushechnikov A, Wu M, and Disney MD. Studying Aminoglycoside Modification by the Acetyltransferase Class of Resistance-Causing Enzymes via Microarray. Carbohydrate Research, (2008), 343, 2924-2931.
Aminova O, Paul DJ, Childs-Disney JL, and Disney MD. Two-Dimensional Combinatorial Screening Identifies Specific 6' Acylated Kanamycin A and 6' Acylated Neamine-RNA Hairpin Interactions. Biochemistry, (2008), 47, 12670-12679.
Aminova O and Disney MD. A Microarray-Based Method to Complete Nucleic Acid Selections. Methods in Molecular Biology, in press.
Labuda LP, Pushechnikov A, and Disney MD. Small Molecule Microarrays of RNA-Focused Peptoids Help Identify Inhibitors of a Pathogenic Group I Intron. ACS-Chemical Biology, in press. Cover Article.
Disney MD. Short Circuiting RNA Splicing, Nature Chemical Biology, (2008), 4, 723-724.
Lee MM, Pushechnikov A, and Disney MD. Rationally Designed Ligands that Target the RNA that Causes Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy Type 2. ACS-Chemical Biology, in press.