Speakers

Image

Prof. Gonçalo Bernardes , University of Cambridge (UK)

Research mission: Our research uses chemistry principles to address questions of importance in life sciences and molecular medicine. This lecture will cover recent examples of emerging areas in our group in:
I. methods for site-selective chemical modification of proteins and antibodies;
II. bioorthogonal cleavage reactions for targeted drug activation in cells;
III. click-degraders, small molecules that when in proximity can degrade RNA, akin to ribonucleases. Using click-degraders we developed 1) meCLICK-Seq, a powerful method for the study of diverse aspects of cellular RNA methylation, and 2) proximity-driven small molecule RNA degraders to target and degrade SARS-CoV-2 genomes and exert an antiviral effect in disease models.
Image

Prof. Dennis Gillingham, University of Basel (CH)

Research mission: Our research group studies DNA encoded library development and novel approaches for creating functional small molecules. In both of these areas of research our group applies the concept of induced proximity to enable new function



Image

Dr. Slava Ziegler, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (DE)

Research mission: Our main focus is the identification of small-molecule modulators of processes that contribute to tumorigenesis using phenotypic screening. This is tightly coupled to the identification of the molecular targets and the mode of action of hit compounds. To study the biological activity of small molecules in an unbiased manner, we additionally employ morphological profiling by means of the Cell Painting assay for newly synthesized as well as for reference compounds. This enables predicting the mode of action for novel compounds and uncovering unknown bioactivity for drugs or tool compounds

Schumann

Dr. Thais Gazzi, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel (CH)

Research mission: The chemical biology team works alongside medicinal chemistry and lead discovery departments to develop appropriate chemical tools that enable interrogating biological mechanisms, including protein function, endogenous binding partners and off-targets. Our programs profit from fluorescent probes, PET tracers and tool compounds to assess druggability of the target and screening efforts at early stages to target occupancy and off-target identification up to biomarkers development. Overall, chemical biology plays a vital role in the development of new drugs across all stages of research and development.

Image

Prof. Scott Lovell, University of Bath (UK)

Research mission: Research in the Lovell group is at the interface of chemistry, biology, and medicine and includes peptide synthesis, covalent drug discovery, chemical proteomics, and phage display. We are interested in using new chemical modalities to image or treat diseases including cancer and antibiotic-resistant infections.



Image

Prof. Patrick Barth, EPF Lausanne (CH)

Research mission: Our lab is developing and applying hybrid AI-based computational/experimental approaches for engineering classes of proteins with novel functions for cell engineering, synthetic biology and therapeutic applications. Through our bottom-up design approach, we also strive to better understand the molecular and physical principles that underlie the emergence, evolution and robustness of the complex functions encoded by proteins and their associated networks.


Image

Prof. Stephan Hacker, University of Leiden (NL)

Research mission: Stephan Hacker’s group develops chemistries for novel covalent protein ligands targeting diverse amino acids as well as chemoproteomic technologies to study their target engagement with resolution of the modified amino acid residue in proteome-wide studies. His group focuses on the application of these compounds and technologies to identify new druggable target proteins in bacteria.


Image

Dr. Philipp Ottis, Novartis Biomedical Research Basel, CH
Research mission: Exploring novel drugging paradigms to unlock hard-to-drug targets