Q&A with Jacob Capener: Targeting Understudied Proteins for Cancer Drug Development

During Jacob Capener’s first research project in his undergraduate lab, nothing worked. For months, he conducted experiment after experiment that failed to achieve the results he expected. Yet despite all the failures, he enjoyed the experience.

“That’s the moment for me where I was like, I should probably keep going with this,” he said. “If nothing worked and I’m still wanting to stick around.”

Now a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Capener is working to develop new chemical tools that will allow him to investigate the therapeutic potential of understudied proteins. Despite decades of research, the scientific community still focuses on a narrow subset of proteins for drug development for almost all human diseases.

Capener received a PhRMA Foundation 2025 Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery for his work to create chemical tools that can selectively block the activation of a group of understudied proteins known as Casein Kinase Gamma 1 (CK1g). Using these tools, Capener aims to understand better the role CK1g plays in cellular signaling in both the healthy human body and in cancer.

Watch this video to learn more about Capener and his research.

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