Presenting Author
Laboratori de Química Farmacèutica (Unitat Associada al CSIC), Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, Universitat de Barcelona and IBUB, Spain
I am a Full Professor in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Science, University of Barcelona (UB) and a member of the Institute of Biomedicine of the UB (IBUB). I have over 25 years’ experience working on organic and medicinal chemistry, with focus on the synthesis of new compounds with biological activity. After my PhD in the UB (1996, PhD Extraordinary Prize of the UB), I spent two years at the University College London as a Marie Curie Research Fellow (supervisor: William B. Motherwell). Back to Barcelona in 2000 as Assistant Professor, I obtained a “Ramón y Cajal contract” in 2001 and the “I3 accreditation” in 2004. Later, I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005 and to Full Professor in 2020. During 2016 I worked as a “Salvador de Madariaga” grant holder at The Institute of Cancer Research (UK).
After working several years in pure organic chemistry -novel synthetic methodology, chemistry of polycyclic hydrocarbons-, more recently my research has focused on the synthesis of novel channel blockers -human NMDA and P2X7, M2 channel of influenza virus- and novel enzyme inhibitors, including 11β-HSD1 inhibitors and soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitors. For my medicinal chemistry programs, I have established successful collaborations with several biological groups in Europe (e. g., Prof. Lieve Naesens, KU Leuven, Belgium; Prof. Scott P. Webster, University of Edinburgh, UK) and the USA (e. g., Prof. William F. DeGrado, UCSF; Prof. Lawrence H. Pinto, Northwestern University; Prof. Bruce D. Hammock, UCD; Prof. Jon W. Johnson, University of Pittsburgh). On these topics, I have published, as leading author, more than 45 articles in highly reputed journals (Angew Chem Int Ed, J Am Chem Soc, J Med Chem, Antiviral Res, Eur J Med Chem, ACS Med Chem Lett, ACS Chem Neurosci. etc.).
So far, I have supervised 14 PhD Thesis (+ 3 ongoing), and several MSc Research projects. I have participated as co-I in 16 research projects and as PI in 8 research projects from public funding agencies. I am currently involved in two projects funded by the NIH of the USA. I have been the PI in 9 research contracts with Spanish and international (Boehringer Ingelheim, Heterodrugs, Pharmazell) chemical and pharmaceutical companies. I am co-inventor in several patents both in new chemical entities with biological activity and in new processes for the manufacturing of generic active pharmaceutical ingredients. I have successfully applied to several valorization programs for transferring knowledge to the private sector. Indeed, our patent on 11β-HSDI inhibitors was licensed to the private sector.
Regarding the topic of the poster we present at EB 2022, my group has been working on the design and synthesis of new sEH inhibitors for 6 years. We have set up a network of collaborators, filed 4 patents applications, published several papers, and supervised 2 PhD Thesis on this topic.