Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group Community Meeting at Leeds
Great list of speakers and glad to present our results on new G4 binders as well as to discuss the most recent advances in the Chemical Biology field in the CBBG meeting.
July, 2023
Finally, our work presenting the application of metallo-phthalocyanines for dual G-quadruplex targeting and photosensitizing is out
This pioneering computational study serves a tool to accelerate the search for new leads against G4s, reducing false positive outcomes in the early stages of drug discovery
March, 2023
New paper dealing with the investigation of metal complexes on DNA binding and antimicrobial effect
How the zinc complexation of polytopic ligands can change the DNA binding and antimicrobial activity, take a look of our recent publication in collaboration with Piantanida and Radić-Stojković in Dalton Transaction!
March, 2023
Interview in Radio Libertad
Interesting chat with Antonio G. Armas in his program about G-quadruplexes. We explained what is, how many are in the genome, their potential applications and the work we are developing about them. Follow the link for the full interview. Investigadores por el mundo
March, 2023
VI GEQB bienal meeting
Glad to meet collaborators and be updated about the research of peers at the Chemical Biology Symposium in Valencia. VI GEQB bienal meeting
Janurary, 2023
New work on polyamine derivatives acting against Trypanosoma cruzi
In this Pharmacuetics, we developed a new strategy to evaluate the antiparasitic activity of polyamine-like molecules.
November, 2022
Wellcome to Jyotsna!
Happy to welcome Jyotsna, who has joined our team for a short stage from the company MolDrug AI Systems with a MSCA project on computational tools to evaluate G-quadruplex DNA drugs.
September, 2022
Laura's PhD Fellowship!
Very happy for Laura, who has obtained a PhD grant from the GVA to conduct her project on the development of metal complexes to target non-canonical RNA structures in cancer cells.
June, 2022
ISMEC 2022 in Valencia
It was hard to prepare ISMEC but it was worth it! See you next year in Urbino
December, 2022
Meeting at Palma de Mallorca
We are glad to be back to in person meetings in the 2nd Supramat Meeting, organized by the Supramat Network held in Palma de Mallorca. Nice presentations of Ariadna and Mario of their projects on G-quadruplex DNA binders and antibiotics. Hope this network will continue in the future with so talent and enthusiastic researchers within the supramolecular field.
January, 2022
Back to the lab in 2022!
Ariadna is in charge now of the lab for a while and is working with picks and shovels by doing FRET meltings, fluorimetric titrations and gel electrophoresis assays besides taking care of Laura and Andrea. Glad to see her growing as scientist and leader.
Just to celebrate the hard work during 2021, we enjoyed the lunch Christmas in Ruzafa with vegan food and some beers. Great team and nicer people!
First publication of the antimicrobial project in Antibiotics
We are glad to publish in Antibiotics the first work on the collaborative project to tackle microbial infections through photoinactivation strategies. We reviewed and collected all the properties and results of alkaloids for photoinactivation of bacteria and microorganisms.“Alkaloids as Photosensitisers for the Inactivation of Bacteria” published in Antibiotics. Congrats to Sonia, Cristina, Ariadna, Stephane and Carol! This is the kick-off milestone of the project and waiting for the new results coming…
Laura and TEM
Laura is finally happy to see her silver DNA nanoparticles by TEM.
Sonia is showing her latest results on the evaluation of the interaction of metal-phthalocyanines with G-quadruplexes in the XVII Symposium of Young Researchers in Alcala de Henares from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.
Visit to University Miguel Hernández
Jorge and Enrique presented the team’s projects at the Institute of Bioengineering of the University of Miguel Hernandez. Thanks Angela and Fernando for the invitation!
Andrea is assissting to the School of Nucleic Acids
Andrea assisted and presented her work on G-quadruplex probes at the Innovative Therapeutic Targets in Non-Canonical Nucleic Acids Structures Winter International School. Very cool initiative for the younger scientists working on nucleic acids.
Enrique and Jorge discussing with the students about Bioinorganic Chemistry
October, 2021
Paper of upconversion nanoparticles in out in Biomedicines!
Happy to see published our collaboration with Profs. Julia Pérez and Maria González dealing with biological evaluation of upconversion nanoparticles in Biomedicines. A panel of assays demonstrated the higher biocompatibility of nanohybrids containing cucurbit[7]urils on the surface of nanoparticles. In addition, NIR laser scanning microscopy showed the integrity of the nanoparticles in the cells and their potential application for bioimaging platforms. Nice work “Initial Biological Assessment of Upconversion Nanohybrids” published in Biomedicines.
Sonia shows her skills
The two passions of Sonia… bacterial culturing and painting drawings.
Andrea and Laura began her MRs projects in the lab as part of the Molecular Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Master conducted at the ICMol. Wish you the best luck!
Andrea and Sarai defense their Degree's Chemistry projects
On one side, Andrea presented her project on the third generation of G-quadruplex probes based on the triphenylamine scaffold, on the other side, Sarai showed her results on the application of G-quadruplex binders in cancer therapies. Congrats, you did brilliant!
July, 2021
Defense of Noemí's MRs project
Very proud of Noemí defense of her Master’s thesis in the Experimental Techniques in Chemistry program of the University of Valencia. She developed far-red fluorescent probes for detecting G-quadruplexes and did an amazing good job, congrats!
Defense of projects in Chemistry and Pharmacy Degree's
Informal meeting to work on the Degree and Master thesis presentations of Jose, Laura, Noemí, Andrea and Sarai. At the end of the month, Jose and Laura defended their works on the development of mismatched base pair duplexes recognition and DNA-based nanomaterials for imaging applications.
Ariadna presented her work as a poster in the 1st SupraMat Conference held on line. Fantastic work!
Presentation of the results to the University of Mississippi
It was super to present to our collaborators at the University of Mississippi WHY working on non-canonical DNA structures is so cool and an amazing target to do research with. Thanks for the invitation!
January, 2021
Publication of FLIM studies
Glad to be published the work on Nature Communications. It shows the application of fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy to assess the formation of G-quadruplexes in live cells. We studied the association of G-quadruplex formation and the activity of G4-resolving helicases and the effect of G4-stabilising molecules by using FLIM. Take a look to “Visualising G-quadruplex DNA dynamics in live cells by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy”
November, 2020
Online visit to ALBA synchrotron
Through remote control, we have studied by small angle X-ray scattering the formation of nucleic acid gel materials for biological applications at the NDC-SWEET beamline of the synchrotron ALBA.
September, 2020
Sergio and Adrian passed their final projects in chemistry
Sergio and Adrian defended their Degree’s Thesis on zinc sensors and liposomes materials respectively. Congrats!
July, 2020
Defense of Noemí's chemistry project
Happy to see the effort of Noemí during this period to do a fantastic Degree’s Thesis on polyamine-based molecules for G-quadruplex recognition. You did great!
April, 2020
Skipping the confinement
I skipped the confinement just to prepare solutions of several molecules with the hydroxychloroquinoline structural motif developed during the CONSOLIDER project SUPRAMED by the Supramolecular Group and delivered them to my collaborator in IS2Bio. Hope some of them show significant activity in SARS-Cov-2 virus!
Publications in times of quarantine
Glad to see part of my Newton Fellow period at Imperial College London with Ramón published as pre-printed. We were struggling to visualise G-quadruplexes in cells using cutting-edge microscopic technologies, in particular fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy.
March, 2020
Working at home
Unluckily, Sergio and Noemí must change their BS thesis in bibliographic because of the confinement. It is a pity because the BS projects are designed for training them in a lab and become independent solving professionals. Nevertheless, they are performing a good job with their works.
We proceed in a responsible manner and moved all the operational material (basically the keyboard and the screen) to home by the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. Teaching online, analysing data, writing projects, searching literature, reading papers... Here it is, how our new office looks like!
Finally, all the PCR components arrived and it was set up!!! Now, we can screen a large panel of different non-canonical DNA/RNA structures is an easy and quickly manner. Thanks to the Generalitat Valenciana and the CIDEGENT project.
Ariadna and me assisted to the V GEQB ChemBio Group Meeting in Granada
Wonderful meeting with the latest research in Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry in Spain. We presented one of SICAD main projects on polyamine-based molecules to target G-quadruplexes.
Terrific news to start 2020, Cristina’s work at the interface of chemistry and biology was published in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. She developed a portfolio of molecules with a click-like structure to chelate efficiently zinc ions in vitro and in cells. Two molecules were identified as promising new class of zinc-chelating anticancer agents because of the high cytotoxicity towards tumoral cells in comparison with non-tumoral ones. She spent a research stage at the University of Balearic Islands to conduct all the biological assays and investigate the mechanism of action, involving an apoptotic cell death with loss of mitochondrial outer membrane permeability and activation of caspases 3/7.
Interesting and friendly meeting in Alicante between politics and researchers to discuss about the challenges of science in Valencian Community, Spain and Europe. See some of the press releases.
Very cool conference in Caparica on Translational Chemistry hosted by Professors Carlos Lodeiro and José Luís Capelo! Happy to interact with colleges and excited to start new collaborations on non-canonical DNA structures.
We started December with the 1st Workshop in Supramolecular Chemistry sponsored by the GenT program, in which we hosted four world-leading researcher in the field as well as presented our main research lines at the Supramolecular Chemistry Group of the Institute of Molecular Science. Prof. Ángela Sastre (Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, UMH) introduced us the application of phthalocyanines in the design and development of novel nanomaterials while Prof. Beatriu Escuder from Universitat Jaume I (Castellón) showed us supramolecular materials based on peptides. Then, Prof. Pau Ballester (Institut Català d'Investigació Química, ICIQ) presented nanocontainers to encapsulate anions and Dr. Guzmán Gil (University of Lincoln, United Kingdom) showed the application lanthanides to create surpamolecular knots.
During November we hosted four top-leading scientists at the 1st Symposium on Inorganic Chemical Biology sponsored by the GenT program and the Royal Society. Prof. Jose Luis Mascareñas from CIQUS (Centro Singular de Investigación en Química Biológica y Materiales Moleculares, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) showed us the last investigations of his group on inorganic catalysis in cells and the application of chemical probes to sense biological processes. Dr. Pedro Mateus from Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) told us about the recognition of carbohydrates using aromatic oligoamide capsules. Then, Prof. Ana Pizarro (IMDEA Nanociencia) showed us the development of novel metallodrugs of iridium complexes to target mitochondria and their application as anticancer drugs. To follow on, Prof. Sarah Martin (Barts Cancer Institute & Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom) showed us how to target mitochondria with drugs for the treatment of DNA Mismatch repair deficient diseases. To end with, Dr. Natalia Busto (Universidad de Burgos) presented us the application of biscyclometallated iridium or ruthenium complexes for antibacterial photodynamic therapy.
October was a great month in which Alvaro defended his PhD on antioxidant nanozymes with the highest qualification. Furthermore, Ariadna and Alberto presented their works at the IX Reunión de Química Orgánica del Mediterráneo (REQOMED) at Murcia (Spain).
Isabel defended brilliantly her PhD obtaining the maxima qualification Cum Laude. Very proud and happy to have contributed a little bit for her formation as researcher!
In the XI Reunión Científica de Bioinorgánica (Biolugo2019) in Lugo (Spain), I showed our latest advances in G4 binders to the bioinorganic community in Spain, very nice environment.
International Symposium on Metal Complexes in Debrecen
In June, Isabel and Ariadna presented their projects of polyamine-based ligands as G-quadruplex DNA binders at the International Symposium on Metal Complexes in Debrecen (Hungary). Luckily, Alvaro was awarded with the Pulidori Prize for the best work in thermodynamics of 2018 and presented his work about nanozymes with antioxidant properties.
I started at my former institution, the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol), and set up new projects. One of them, the visualization of non-canonical DNA structures using vibrational microscopy at ALBA synchrotron was founded though two interesting visits in March/April.
During March, we moved from Bordeaux to Valencia and we left behind these amazing friends, co-workers and boss. Besides being brilliant scientists with a strong commitment in research, I miss how friendly and kind people they are! Take care!
