| Summary: |
The strategic program of CIQ-UP for 2015-2020 is planned to reach its major goal by 2020: to be internationally recognized for the excellence and innovative character of its research and to become a leading research unit in Chemistry in Portugal. The previous and current participation in several national and international R&D projects, the recent bibliometric indicators and the reorganization of human and technical resources toward new synergies, will contribute altogether for such goals. The Unit will capitalize on strong internal collaborations between its groups, so as to jointly focus on projects where translational science is applied to current societal demands. The Unit is also committed to advanced human resources training in Chemical Sciences, to have a leading role in both international networking initiatives and academy/industry partnerships, and to improve its already excellent scientific output. To this end, the Unit comprises four groups whose work will converge into two thematic lines - Materials Chemistry & Nanoscience, and Physical & Biophysical Chemistry.
The main goals of the four research groups are:
RG1. Medicinal Chemistry involves the application of organic, analytical, physical and biological chemistry concepts to drug discovery and development of ligands with therapeutic interest. Thus, the main activities of RG1 are focused on the discovery of lead structures that after subsequent optimization can generate drug-candidates. The main projects are focused on:
Discovery of new chemical entities and development of targeted drug delivery systems for the prevention and/or treatment of age-related diseases (single or combined therapy). Optimization of the new lead(s) will be guided by structure-activity relationships (SAR) and molecular modelling data.
Development of new synthetic methodologies for attaining scaffold based libraries in a time and cost effective way.
Collection and evaluation of quantitative structure-activity relationships  |
Summary
The strategic program of CIQ-UP for 2015-2020 is planned to reach its major goal by 2020: to be internationally recognized for the excellence and innovative character of its research and to become a leading research unit in Chemistry in Portugal. The previous and current participation in several national and international R&D projects, the recent bibliometric indicators and the reorganization of human and technical resources toward new synergies, will contribute altogether for such goals. The Unit will capitalize on strong internal collaborations between its groups, so as to jointly focus on projects where translational science is applied to current societal demands. The Unit is also committed to advanced human resources training in Chemical Sciences, to have a leading role in both international networking initiatives and academy/industry partnerships, and to improve its already excellent scientific output. To this end, the Unit comprises four groups whose work will converge into two thematic lines - Materials Chemistry & Nanoscience, and Physical & Biophysical Chemistry.
The main goals of the four research groups are:
RG1. Medicinal Chemistry involves the application of organic, analytical, physical and biological chemistry concepts to drug discovery and development of ligands with therapeutic interest. Thus, the main activities of RG1 are focused on the discovery of lead structures that after subsequent optimization can generate drug-candidates. The main projects are focused on:
Discovery of new chemical entities and development of targeted drug delivery systems for the prevention and/or treatment of age-related diseases (single or combined therapy). Optimization of the new lead(s) will be guided by structure-activity relationships (SAR) and molecular modelling data.
Development of new synthetic methodologies for attaining scaffold based libraries in a time and cost effective way.
Collection and evaluation of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) models for lead optimization.
Lead and drug-like physicochemical properties assessment. Drug-drug and drug-metabolite interaction studies using in vitro and/or in vivo biological systems.
Development of analytical techniques to address questions related to biomedical sciences.
Application of nanotechnology processes for solving problems related inter alia to medicinal chemistry and environmental issues.
RG2. The research of RG2 involves a thermodynamic approach to the study of selected organic compounds (bioactive organic compounds and organic semiconductors) aiming the characterization of their stability. The accurate determination of energetic parameters related with both intra and intermolecular interactions, is expected to yield the development of important correlations between energetic and structural parameters and new predictive methods of thermodynamic properties. The studies will include:
Correlations between energetic and molecular structure of homocyclic and heterocyclic compounds with N, O and S heteroatoms.
Thermodynamic characterization of compounds with potential biological activity.
Determination of binding constants of organic compounds with DNA.
Development of a new model enabling the calculation of standard Gibbs function of solvation of hit and lead drug compounds and of predictive methods of vapor pressures of solid and liquid organic compounds.
Determination of intermolecular hydrogen bonding energies.
Study of the stability and of photoluminescence efficiency of organic materials aiming their potential use in OLED and OPV devices.
RG3. The main focus |