mRNA translation has been shown to be dysregulated in a number of human disorders, particularly cancer; however, targeting of this critical cellular process remains an underexplored area for therapeutic development. This talk will detail current approaches used by the Garner Laboratory for developing chemical probes and assays for investigating translational control in cancer. In particular, our work in the discovery and development of small molecule and peptide probes for protein-protein interactions involved in cap-dependent translation and microRNA-mediated gene silencing will be discussed.