Yoon Laboratory
Hojong Yoon, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Areas of Research
- Chemical Biology
- Targeted Protein Degradation
- Drug Development
- Biochemistry
- Proteomics
- Structural Biology
- Immunology
The Yoon Lab focuses on developing innovative small-molecule drugs to target previously undruggable proteins and to elucidate drug mechanisms at the molecular level. By integrating chemical biology, protein biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, functional genomics and proteomics, the lab aims to develop new small molecules that induce novel protein-protein interactions, opening new avenues for therapeutic intervention and redefining "druggability."
Meet Dr. Yoon
Hojong Yoon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Experimental Therapeutics
Assistant Member, James P. Allison Institute
Hojong received his Ph.D. in chemical biology from Harvard University in 2021, where he worked on elucidating the mechanism behind molecular glue-induced target protein degradation. He completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Benjamin Ebert at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he developed a chemoproteomic approach to identify molecular glues and also gained proficiency in a fluorescent reporter-based CRISPR screen to identify key mediators of targeted protein degradation.
In 2025, he started his independent laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Hojong has published in many high-profile journals as the first author, including Nature, Nature Chemical Biology, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. His research focuses on understanding drug mechanisms at the molecular level and developing new drug modalities towards undruggable targets.
Yoon H#, Rutter JC#, Li YD#, Ebert BL. Induced protein degradation for therapeutics: past, present, and future. J Clin Invest. 2024 Jan 2;134(1):e175265. doi: 10.1172/JCI175265. PMID: 38165043
Słabicki M#, Yoon H#, Koeppel J#, Nitsch L, Roy Burman SS, Di Genua C, Donovan KA, Sperling AS, Hunkeler M, Tsai JM, Sharma R, Guirguis A, Zou C, Chudasama P, Gasser JA, Miller PG, Scholl C, Fröhling S, Nowak RP, Fischer ES, Ebert BL. Small-molecule-induced polymerization triggers degradation of BCL6. Nature. 2020 Dec;588(7836):164-168. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2925-1. Epub 2020 Nov 18. PMID: 33208943
Faust TB#, Yoon H#, Nowak RP, Donovan KA, Li Z, Cai Q, Eleuteri NA, Zhang T, Gray NS, Fischer ES. Structural complementarity facilitates E7820-mediated degradation of RBM39 by DCAF15. Nat Chem Biol. 2020 Jan;16(1):7-14. doi: 10.1038/s41589-019-0378-3. Epub 2019 Nov 4. PMID: 31686031
CPRIT Recruitment of First-Time Tenure-Track Faculty Award
(2024–)
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Start-up Fund Award
(2025–)
UT System Rising STARs award
(2025–)
The Allison Institute Research Start-up Funds
(2025–)
NIH/NCI 1R00CA287069
(2025–)