Confirmed Speakers

Márton Csékei completed his PhD studies in synthetic organic chemistry at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. During his PhD studies he spent 5 months at the Research Centre of BASF in Ludwigshafen, which gave him a great experience in “industrial chemistry”. In 2007 he joined Servier’s new research center in Budapest the Servier Research Institute of Medicinal Chemistry. He worked on the Mcl-1 inhibitor program since its launch, which resulted S 64315, a clinical candidate presently in Phase I clinical trials in multiple indications. He rose through the ranks and in 2016 he was nominated as a Chemistry project leader for an undisclosed target. In this role he has been directing the research activity of an international chemistry discovery team spread across multiple sites.

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Cristina Nevado graduated in chemistry at the Autónoma University of Madrid in 2000. In October 2004 she received her PhD in organic chemistry from the same University working with Prof. Antonio M. Echavarren in late transition metal catalyzed reactions. After a post-doctoral stay in the group of Prof. Alois Fürstner at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Germany), she joined the University of Zürich as an Assistant Professor in May 2007. In 2011, Cristina was awarded the Chemical Society Reviews Emerging Investigator Award and the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award in recognition of her contributions in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. In 2012 she received an ERC Junior Investigator grant and has been awarded the Werner Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society. In 2013 she became Full Professor at the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Zürich. Rooted in the wide area of organic chemistry, her research program is focused on complex chemical synthesis and new organometallic reactions.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Born: May 26, 1987 Citizenship: French Post-doc in Drug design, biochemistry and enzymology Institut de recherche en infectiologie de Montpellier - IRIM - CNRS Montpellier - France

EDUCATION - Ph.D., molecular modeling and drug design, 2018, University of Orléans, France, Highest honors - Master in Drug Design, 2014, University of Caen – Basse Normandie, France - Faculty of Pharmacy (Rank 1/12) , Highest honors - Doctorate in pharmacy , 2011, University of Batna, Algeria - Faculty of Pharmacy - Bachelor's degree, honors, 2006

APPOINTMENTS - April 2018 to present: Post-doc in Drug design, biochemistry and enzymology Laboratory: Institut de recherche en infectiologie de Montpellier - IRIM - CNRS Montpellier - France. “Design and optimize lead compounds targeting an ectoenzyme involved in the anticancer immune response” - Oct 2014 – March 2018: Thesis in molecular modeling and drug design “Binding kinetics prediction of protein kinase inhibitors and their affinity by flexible docking” Laboratores: Institut de Chimie Organique et Analytique – ICOA, Orléans, France Centre de biophysique moléculaire - CBM, Orléans, France - 2014 : Master 2 Internship “Design of new multi-target ligands by molecular modeling: application to Alzheimer's disease” Laboratory: Centre d’Études et de Recherche sur le Médicament de Normandie (CERMN), France - 2013 : Master 1 Internship “Pharmacophore modeling and virtual screening of CERMN’s chemical library applied to human Urotensin-II” Laboratory: CERMN, France

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My name is Charlotte Courtens. I am a final year PhD Student in the Laboratory for Medicinal Chemistry at Ghent University. My research is about fosmidomycin analogues as antimalarial and antitubercular agents, specifically focusing on prodrugs. In 2014, I obtained the degree of Master in Drug Development at Ghent University, after which I immediately started my PhD research. During the course of my PhD, I have constantly been developing my knowledge by taking courses in diverse topics ranging from organic synthesis to drug development.

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For my undergraduate studies, I graduated top of my class (2015) in Medicinal Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a Trinity gold medal for distinction. During my time as an undergraduate, I spent a year working in GSK Stevenage on the Industrial placement programme in the epigenetics department.1,2 I then returned to Trinity and performed a final year project in organocatalysis and kinetic resolution with Prof. Stephen Connon. After enjoying time in both industry and academia, I decided to get the best of both and joined the GSK/Strathclyde collaborative PhD programme under the supervision of Dr. Jacob Bush and Prof. Nick Tomkinson. Now in my third year, my work involves enhancing current methods of target tractability and engagement by using a photoaffinity labelling approach.

Notable achievements during my PhD:
• Awarded best poster presentation at “SCI Epigenetics 2017” in Eli Lilly (7th Sept 2017).
• Awarded best oral presentation at “11th Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Symposium for Postgraduates” in Cambridge (8th Dec 2017).
• Awarded best oral presentation at “2018 RSC Chemical Biology and Bio-organic Group Postgraduate Symposium” in Leeds (10th May 2018).
• Awarded PECRE funding (to the value of £4700) from the Scottish Funding Council (ScotCHEM) for a 3-month placement with Cellzome in Heidelberg, Germany (12th Mar – 15th Jun 2018).


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Ricardo J. Ferreira was born in Abrantes, Portugal in 1980. He graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences (BSc) and Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry (MSc) from the Universidade de Lisboa in 2004 and 2011, respectively. In 2010, he joined Prof. Maria-José U. Ferreira group with a research fellowship to develop computational models that would provide additional insights on multidrug resistance mechanisms under the orientation of Dr. Daniel J.V.A. dos Santos. As a Ph.D. student, his research interests involved structural and functional interaction of ABC transporters/lipid bilayer systems with substrates and efflux modulators, isolation and characterization of new macrocyclic diterpenes from Euphorbia species and development of novel ABC transporters modulators through chemical derivatization, obtaining his PhD degree in 2017. Currently, he hold a PostDoctoral Research position in Molecular Biophysics, at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology of Uppsala University, Sweden, primarily focused on developing computational approaches to tackle bacterial antibiotic resistance.

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Lukas Friedrich studied chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. He completed his undergraduate studies in 2015, and received a master‘s degree in Chemistry in 2016. Since then he is conducting his PhD studies in the group of Prof. Gisbert Schneider at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at ETH Zurich. His research interests focus on computational drug design, medicinal chemistry and the application of artificial intelligence in drug discovery.

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Marta Frigolé-Vivas is a 4th year PhD student at the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics and Medicinal Chemistry group at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona).

Marta obtained her bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona in 2015. As an undergraduate, she focused her research in the Medicinal Chemistry field. First, she acquired experience at the University of Barcelona in Dr. Vázquez and Dr. J.F. Luque labs, designing and synthesizing new inhibitors against Influenza virus. She also gained experience abroad, in Dr. Gütschow’s group at the University of Bonn working on peptide synthesis and in GlaxoSmithKline where she undertook an Industrial Placement year in the epigenetics department. Taking advantage of her background in Medicinal Chemistry, in her PhD she has characterized the interaction of small molecules with their targets using biophysical tools, mainly Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. In particular, she has centered her attention in targets that are intrinsically disordered.

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Erofili GIANNAKOPOULOU received her Pharmacy Degree (B.Sc.) from the University of Athens (NKUA) in Greece, followed by a Master’s in Synthetic Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2016. Her M.Sc. thesis focused on the synthesis of antivirals against Hepatitis C and Influenza. She currently continues her research in this field as Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, NKUA. Her specialization is the design and synthesis of novel metal-chelating agents which are evaluated for their antiviral (Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Flaviviruses) and trypanocidal (T. brucei, T. cruzi) activity. In 2016, Erofili was selected from the International Society for Antiviral Research (ISAR) to receive the “Chu Family Foundation Award”, which highlights the significant contribution of women scientists in the field of antiviral research. Her scientific work has been awarded several times for its academic excellence and innovation.

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Finn Kristian Hansen was born and grew up in Flensburg, Germany. He became interested in medicinal chemistry during his pharmacy studies at the University of Hamburg. After obtaining his license as a pharmacist in 2005, he joined the research group of Detlef Geffken at the University of Hamburg. In 2009, he was awarded a Ph.D. and moved in 2010 to the University of Florida where he worked with the late Alan R. Katritzky as a postdoctoral fellow. Subsequently, he was a junior group leader at the Institute for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (2011 – 2016). In November 2016, he became a Junior Professor at the Institute of Pharmacy, Leipzig University. His research interests focus on the development of selective histone deacetylase inhibitors, peptidomimetic foldamers and multi-target drugs.

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After graduating cum laude from the Chemistry programme at Leiden University, Anthe Janssen joined the newly formed group Molecular Physiology, headed by prof. Mario van der Stelt, as a PhD-student in September 2014. Here he works on the synthesis and biological characterisation of endocannabinoid related enzymes, and as such was involved in the project leading to a publication in Science in 2017.

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Studied chemistry at the Novosibirsk State University (Russia). Performed diploma thesis on antisense morpholino oligonucleotide analogs under the supervision of Prof. Tatiana Abramova. Since 2012 working at the facility core of mass-spectrometry at the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, focusing on pharmacokinetic studies in pre-clinical drug research. Since 2015 cooperates with Novosibirsk State University at the Joint Center for proteomics and metabolomics studies under the supervision of Prof. Vladimir Koval. In 2017 he started the project on multiple sclerosis metabolic profiling. The current position is researcher engineer at the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine. Research interests focused on biochemistry, metabolomics and proteomics studies of the diseases, data analysis and novel methods of diagnostics.

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David Lankri received his B.Pharm. and M.Sc. degree in medicinal chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Since 2016, he has been a Ph.D. student under the guidance of Dr. Dmitry Tsvelikhovsky at the Institute for Drug Research, School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University. His research interests focus on the development of methods for the synthesis of natural products frames, mainly tricyclic-spiranoid systems and alkaloids.

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Current title and position: MSc Jelena Lazić, PhD student (3rd year) Research Trainee at the Innovation Center of the Faculty of Chemistry

Research fields:
Organic chemistry: Functionalization of natural products; design and synthesis of natural products inspired molecules. Medicinal chemistry: Synthesis of antifungal compounds, evaluation of biological activities against a panel of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, investigation of the mechanism of action. Molecular biology: Developing methods of cultivation of microorganism strains, establishing methods of isolation and purification of natural products.

Education and former professional experience: Jelena Lazić completed her Undergraduate and Master academic studies at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Chemistry, and proceeded to Doctoral academic studies at the Department of Organic Chemistry in the research group of Prof. Dr. Igor Opsenica. Part of her PhD research is done in cooperation with Dr. Jasmina Nikodinovic-Runic at the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGE). She is included in two projects as an investigator: “Interactions of antibodies with iminoguanidine heme analogues – molecular mechanisms and functional implications” and “Synthesis of aminoquinolins and derivatives as antimalarials and botulinum neurotoxin inhibitors”.

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Cassandra Fleming obtained her PhD in organic chemistry in 2015 from Deakin University, Australia. Following her doctorate, she joined the group of Prof Joakim Andréasson as a postdoctoral researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in which her work focused on the development of fluorescent bioactives as molecular tools to probe real-time intracellular events. Cassandra currently works as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in the group of Prof Morten Grølti. Her research interests focus on the development of light responsive kinase inhibitors in efforts to achieve light controlled biological functions.

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DR. GABOR MAASZ PhD– Research Fellow in Balaton Limnological Institute, Centre for Ecological Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Brief description of the main scopes: Monitor of organic pollutants (steroids, drug residues) at catchment area of Lake Balaton.
Investigation of adaptation mechanisms to the antropogenic exposure in aquatic test animals.
Liquid chromatography-Mass spectrometer (LC-MS) online system was used to the investigations.
Main profile in keywords: Neurochemistry, Neuropeptides, Proteomics, Mass Spectrometry

Education
2005-2010 University of Pécs, Medical School Pharmacy program-M.Sc.-pharm.doc.
2010-2013 University of Pécs, Medical School,Institute of Biochemistry and Medical
Chemistry,Interdisciplinary Doctoral School – PhD student 2015 Ph.D. University of Pécs, Interdisciplinary Doctoral School (Title of Ph.D. dissertation: Investigation of effect of PACAP to the central nervous sytem by mass spectrometry technics)

Professional experience
2013-2014 University of Pécs, Medical School,Institute of Biochemistry and Medical Chemistry,Interdisciplinary Doctoral School – assistant professor
2014-2017 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Office for Research Groups, Adaptive Neuroetology research Group– research fellow
2017- Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Ecological Research, Balaton Limnological Institute – research fellow

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Mattia Mori graduated in medicinal chemistry at the University of Florence in 2004. In 2009 he got the international PhD degree in structural biology at CERM, the magnetic resonance center of the University of Florence, under the supervision of Prof. Ivano Bertini. After a post-doc at the University of Siena (2009), he moved to the Sapienza University of Rome from 2010 to 2012 as post-doc in the medicinal chemistry department. In 2012 he started the collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology as post-doc (2012-2017) and researcher (2017-2018). Mattia is currently senior researcher at the University of Siena in the research group of Prof. Maurizio Botta. Starting from the PhD course, Mattia’s research interest is focused on the computational study of zinc-binding proteins, and the design and optimization of small molecule modulators as therapeutic-candidates against human diseases. Particularly, efforts were spent in targeting the nucleocapsid protein (NC) of HIV-1 to fight antiretroviral drug resistance, as well as the Gli1 zinc-finger protein of the Hedgehog signaling pathway to develop anticancer agents.

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My name is Martina Mušković and I am a PhD student of doctoral study program „Medicinal Chemistry“ at the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka. I have graduated in 2017 with a Master degree at the Department of Biotechnology under supervision of Dr Nela Malatesti. During my final year of master program I have spent three months at the University of Hull, in the Laboratory for photochemistry and photobiology where my supervisor was Dr Ross Boyle. I was working on synthesis of BODIPY dyes and their use on confocal microscopy. During college, I have been working on popularisation of science by making video materials with chemistry experiments for secondary school students.

My PhD research, carried out under supervision of Dr Nela Malatesti, is based on organic synthesis of porphyrins, specifically amphiphilic porphyrins for their applications in photodynamic therapy.

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Dr. Jorge Peiró Cadahía is a Research Scientist at the Scandinavian biopharmaceutical company Nuevolution A/S. The company focuses on the development of drug treatments for human diseases within oncology and chronic inflammatory diseases using their DNA encoded libraries technology. Jorge is part of the research group working on the discovery of new Bromodomain and Extra-Terminal (BET) protein inhibitors for the treatment of inflammatory conditions, a project in the lead optimization stage.

In 2012, he obtained his B.Sc. degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain) and in 2014 his M.Sc. degree from the Technical University of Denmark (Copenhagen, Denmark). He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2017 from the same university, where he worked on the development of prodrugs for the treatment inflammatory diseases and cancer, under the supervision of Prof. Mads H. Clausen. His work has been recently published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Jorge has also carried out a research project on the discovery and development of novel Pd-catalyzed C‒H activation methodologies under the supervision of Prof. Matthew J. Gaunt at the University of Cambridge.

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Jacques Saarbach studied chemistry at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, with a focus on organic chemistry and biochemistry. In 2012, he moved to the USA in North Carolina to work on the synthesis of kinase inhibitors analogues in the laboratories of GSK. In 2013, he came back to Montpellier, to finish both a Master Degree in Chemistry and in Biology with a strong focus on medicinal chemistry. During this time, he worked in the Cell Cycle Biosensors and inhibitors at the IBMM developing peptide based fluorescent probes for CDK Cyclins. In 2014, he joined the group of Pr. Winssinger for a PhD at the University of Geneva, where his PhD focuses on the development of fluorescent probes based on templated reactions, mainly targeting protein kinases and on PNA-encoded chemical libraries screening for different proteins of interest.

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Christian Steinebach completed his undergraduate studies in Pharmacy (state examination) at the University of Bonn, Germany. In 2015, he became a licensed Pharmacist and got the Carl-Friedrich-Mohr award. He received his MSc in Drug Development in 2016. Since then he is performing his PhD studies in Pharmaceutical Chemistry supervised by Prof. Michael Gütschow at the Pharmaceutical Institute in Bonn. In 2018, he successfully applied for a PhD-related scholarship from the Bonn International Graduate School of Drug Sciences. His scientific work is devoted to the Medicinal Chemistry of Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs), to the design and synthesis of bioactive molecules acting by a new modality of targeted degradation of disease causing proteins, as well as to general questions about the utilization of the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

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My current research focuses on the search for novel histamine H3 receptor ligands in the group of piperazine derivatives. I graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków, and now I am a PhD student in the Department of Technology and Biotechnology of Drugs, under the supervision of Prof. Katarzyna Kieć-Kononowicz. In my scientific work I’m involved in chemical synthesis of novel compounds. The results of my recent research Synthesis and biological activity of novel tert -butyl and tert -pentylphenoxyalkyl piperazine derivatives as histamine H3R ligands were published this year in European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

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Nace Zidar is an assistant professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana. He defended his PhD thesis in 2011 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Danijel Kikelj. During the years 2007-2011, he collaborated on the EU FP6 Project INTAFAR, where he was involved in the design and synthesis of new inhibitors of peptidoglycan biosynthesis. During the years 2011-2015, he worked on the EU FP7 Project MAREX, with the aim of discovering new bioactive compounds based on marine sources. In 2013, he obtained a two-year postdoctoral project on the design, synthesis and evaluation of voltage-gated sodium channel modulators, funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. From 2015, he collaborates in the EU H2020 MSCA-ITN INTEGRATE, where he is involved in the discovery of compounds with the activity against Gram-negative bacteria. In 2017, he did a post-doctoral training at the Department of Chemistry, University of Milan. His research interests involve rational drug design, synthesis and evaluation of new bioactive compounds, primarily with the activity against voltage-gated ion channels, bacterial topoisomerases and with anticancer activity. He is a co-author of more than 30 SCI original scientific papers, a recipient of the 2010 Faculty of Pharmacy award for high-impact publication, and the winner of 2011 Krka prize.

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