- Chief Scientist of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC)
- Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, UHN
- Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto
Professor Arrowsmith is an internationally recognized expert in cancer-related structural biology and chemical biology and epigenetics. She has also led the Toronto site of the SGC since its inception, coordinating its epigenetic chemical probe program.
Using structural and biochemical expertise, Professor Arrowsmith’s team has developed a series of chemical probes (drug-like tool compounds) targeting epigenetic regulators that are being used widely by the research community to better understand human biology and disease, and to identify new therapeutic opportunities.
Arrowsmith’s team at the SGC recently developed a novel inhibitor of protein-protein interaction site of WDR5, a key component of several important chromatin regulatory complexes. This chemical probe was used to demonstrate that antagonism of WDR5 protein-protein interactions results in the suppression of cell growth and viability in CEBPa mutant leukemia and in breast cancer cell lines with gain of function mutations in p53.
Professor Arrowsmith also co-founded Affinium Pharmaceuticals, a structure-based biotech company that developed an anti-MRSA antibiotic that recently completed successful phase IIa trials. She held the Canada Research Chair in Structural Genomics at the University of Toronto from 2013-2017, has published over 350 peer reviewed articles, with more than 80 of these published in the last 5 years, and is the co-author of over 1800 3D protein structures in the global Protein DataBank (PDB).
Professor Arrowsmith received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Toronto and carried out postdoctoral research at Stanford University.