{"id":34,"date":"2017-11-14T14:36:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T13:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gp2a.org\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2025-02-07T16:41:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T15:41:05","slug":"committee","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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President: Dr. Florence McCarthy<\/a><\/h2>\n

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Florence graduated from the School of Pharmacy, University of Sunderland, UK with a PhD on \u201cSynthesis of Novel Ellipticines as Molecular Probes and DNA Binders\u201d funded by the EPSRC. Following Post-Doctoral Research with Prof. Bill Denny at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC), New Zealand working on inhibitors of the Wee1 and Chk1 checkpoint kinases and the ErbB kinase inhibitor programme, he returned to Ireland where he is a Senior Lecturer\/Associate Professor at University College Cork. Florence is a Principal investigator in the Analytical and Biological Chemistry Research Facility (ABCRF) and leads a research theme in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry investigating the synthesis and evaluation of diverse bioactive molecules from steroids to complex heterocycles with the aim to develop novel molecules for the treatment of cancer and other diseases.<\/p>\n

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Vice-President: Dr. V\u00e2nia M. Moreira<\/a><\/h2>\n

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V\u00e2nia M. Moreira (ORCID 0000-0001-6169-5035) holds a doctoral degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry (2008) from the University of Coimbra, in Portugal. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Coimbra. She is awarded with the “Title of Docent” (Dosentti) from the University of Helsinki, in Finland, since 2015. Prior to her relocation to Portugal in 2019, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra (2009-2012), a post-doctoral reseacher at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Finland (2012-2015) and later a PI (2015-to date), and then a Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry (2017-2020), at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS), at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. She is a highly international researcher having worked & lived in Portugal, the USA, Italy , Finland and the UK. V\u00e2nia is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) since 2018, a professional recognition scheme for university lecturers with teaching practices well-aligned with the United Kingdom Professional Standards framework (UKPSF). She also holds a post-graduate certificate in knowledge exchange, from the University of Strathclyde, since 2019.\u00a0V\u00e2nia works in the field of organic & pharmaceutical chemistry, namely in compound design, synthesis and bioactivity testing, with emphasis on exploring the medicinal chemistry of terpenoid-based compounds for the design of\u00a0anti-infective drug leads. Her research has attracted funding from several international sources including Business Finland, the Academy of Finland, the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation, the Huonekalus\u00e4\u00e4ti\u00f6, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK), Tenovus Scotland, the European Union (Seventh Framework Programme, FP7), the European networking COST action CM1307 (2016-2018), the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology (FCT) and the University of Coimbra (INOVC+).<\/p>\n

General Secretary: Prof. Susan Matthews<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Susan gained her BPharm from the University of Nottingham and her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry, from the University of Bath in 1995 for a thesis entitled “Synthesis of Biodegradable Polymers for Delivery of Diagnostic Agents”. She gained Post-Doctoral experience at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Prague (Royal Society European Fellowship), Johannes Gutenberg Universit\u00e4t, Mainz and the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford before taking up the Kinerton Lectureship of Organic Chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin. She joined the University of East Anglia in April 2003 as Lecturer of Medicinal Chemistry and was promoted to Senior lecturer in 2008. Her research is focused on the interface between chemistry and biology and particularly on the use of supramolecular systems for drug and gene delivery and in novel antibacterial treatments.<\/p>\n

Treasurer: Dr. Jean-Jacques H\u00e9lesbeux<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Jean-Jacques is a faculty member of the SONAS research team in the Facult\u00e9 de Pharmacie, Universit\u00e9 d\u2019Angers. His research is focussed on medicinal plants, phytochemistry and the chemistry of natural products.<\/p>\n

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Honorary President: Prof. Pascal Marchand<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"PM\"<\/p>\n

Pascal Marchand received a PhD (1999) in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Nantes, France. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor (2001) in Organic Chemistry, within the School of Pharmacy. Pascal obtained his Habilitation (2007) in the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of azaheterocyclic compounds and, since 2013, he is a full Professor of Organic Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, University of Nantes. He is currently deputy director of the UR 1155 – IICiMed team of the University of Nantes – France (January 2017) and head of the MedChem department. In December 2022, he was elected Vice-Dean for Research at the School of Pharmacy – Nantes University.<\/p>\n

His main research field is focused on the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of heterocyclic compounds for therapeutic purposes (mycology and parasitology) by targeting kinase-signalling pathways, through the supervision of 17 PhD students and 8 Postdoctoral programmes in the frame of industrial collaborations, French academic collaborations and international joint supervisions. He managed various international collaborative projects (CAPES-COFECUB Brazil, PHC Ulysses Ireland, CONACyT Mexico, University of Toronto Canada, Ege University, Izmir & Izmir Katip Celebi University Turkey, & Assane Seck University of Ziguinchor Senegal). He was President (2017-2024) of the European research network (GP2<\/sub>A: Group for the Promotion of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in Academia) and he is a board member of the French Medicinal Chemistry Society (SCT, January 2019). Pascal is co-author of 75 international publications, 4 international patents and he was invited to deliver 30 conferences in international meetings. Recently (2021), his research has attracted funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) to coordinate a 4-year project dedicated to antiparasite chemotherapy and entitled: Targeting host-parasite interactions through the inhibition of EXcreted LEISHmania casein kinase 1 (TEXLEISH).<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Dr. Niamh O\u2019Boyle<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr. Niamh O’Boyle is an Associate Professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin. She received her BSc(Pharm)(1st class) and PhD degree from Trinity College Dublin, working with Prof. Mary J. Meegan. She subsequently completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) with Prof. Ann-Therese Karlberg and the School of Biochemistry and Immunology (TCD), working with Prof. Daniela Zisterer. Niamh is fascinated by the interaction of chemicals, both drugs and toxins, with the body. This inspires her research in the development of novel drugs for hard-to-treat cancers and in discovering the underlying mechanisms of skin allergy. She was awarded a Fellowship of TCD in 2023 and Fellowship of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland (ICI) in 2024. She is also a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Royal Society of Chemistry. She has been appointed to the Physical, Chemical & Mathematical Sciences multidisciplinary committee of the Royal Irish Academy (2022-2026). She has been a committee member of the GP2A since 2017.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Dr. Shailesh Mistry<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Shailesh received an MPharm (Hons) degree in 2003, and PhD in Pharmacy (Medicinal Chemistry) in 2009, from the University of Nottingham, UK. The focus of his PhD was \u201cStructure-activity relationships of novel beta-1 adrenoceptor ligands\u201d, under the supervision of Prof. Barrie Kellam and Prof. Stephen Hill and this work formed the basis of a Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery project focusing on the lead optimisation of new highly selective beta-blockers, which he continued to work on for three years as a post-doctoral research fellow. He subsequently spent two and a half years as a senior research fellow with Prof. Peter Scammells at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Melbourne, Australia) working on a variety of projects developing allosteric modulators for GPCRs.
He returned to Nottingham in 2014, after appointment as an Assistant Professor in Medicinal Chemistry, within the School of Pharmacy. His research continues in the chemical biology\/drug discovery of ligands for a range of GPCR targets (including the beta adrenoceptors, dopamine D2 receptor, CXCR2, histamine H1 receptor, Mu opioid receptor). In addition to his research interests, he is the Course Director for both Postgraduate-Taught Masters programmes offered by the School.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Christophe Rochais<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Christophe Rochais received his engineering degree in chemistry from the Ecole Nationale Sup\u00e9rieure de Chimie de Mulhouse (ENSCMu) in 2002 and completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. S. Rault at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie from 2002 to 2005. Following his doctoral studies, he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, University of Nottingham, under the guidance of Prof. Peter M. Fischer. In 2007, h joined the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Universit\u00e9 Caen Normandie as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry and was promoted Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2014. His research focuses on medicinal chemistry, particularly in enzymatic inhibition and receptor modulation, aimed at developing pharmacological tools and bioactive compounds. Since 2012, he has been leading a research group dedicated to the design and development of pleiotropic compounds for the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. He served as the Director of the Centre d\u2019\u00c9tudes et de Recherche sur le M\u00e9dicament de Normandie (CERMN), a position he holds until 2024. He is also a member of the French National Academy of Pharmacy. He has authored over 80 international publications and patents and has presented at more than 50 international conferences.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Dr. Michael Decker<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Michael Decker has studied chemistry at University of Bonn, Germany, and Cambridge, UK. After his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at Bonn University on dopamine receptor ligands, he worked in a company. He obtained his teaching qualification (\u201chabilitation\u201d) in Pharmacy from University of Jena, Germany. He was Visiting Scientist at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and lecturer at Queen\u2019s University Belfast, UK, before he was appointed Professor for Pharmaceutical\/Medicinal Chemistry at W\u00fcrzburg University, Germany. His research interests are focused on Chemical Neuroscience, dealing with the development of PET ligands for diagnostics of cardiac and neuroinflammation, hybrid molecules against Alzheimer\u2019s disease, natural products\u2019 neuroprotective properties and photopharmacology.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Francesca Giuntini<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Francesca studied Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Florence (Florence, Italy), and obtained her PhD from the University of Rome \u201cLa Sapienza\u201d, working on cationic amphiphilic phthalocyanines for the photodynamic inactivation of microorganisms. Post-dosctoral positions included working at Molteni Farmaceutici (in a collaboration between the University of Padova, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (Rome) and Molteni Farmaceutici), the University of Aveiro, the University of Bath and the University of Hull. Since June 2013 I she has been a Lecturer (now Senior Lecturer) in Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University where her research interests include photodynamic therapy.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Dr. Philipp Klahn<\/a><\/h2>\n
\n

Philipp Klahn studied chemistry at the Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen in Germany receiving his degree in 2010. He completed his PhD in method development in organic chemistry under the supervision of Stefan. F. Kirsch at the Bergische Universit\u00e4t Wuppertal in Germany in 2014 as a fellow of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (FCI). Following his doctoral studies, he worked as a fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation at the BioScience Research Collaborative at the William Marshall Rice University in Houston, Texas\/USA under the guidance of Prof. K. C. Nicolaou dealing with natural product chemistry and total synthesis. In 2015, he joined the team of Prof. Mark Br\u00f6nstrup at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, gaining expertise in the development of extracellular-targeted drug conjugates and chemical biology. In 2017 he became an independent research group leader at the Technische Universit\u00e4t Braunschweig in Germany and was appointed in 2022 as Associate Professor for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. His research focusses on the development of natural product derived drugs, bioresponsive molecular tool compounds and prodrugs as well as the development of extracellular-targeted drug conjugates and diagnostics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Vittorio Pace<\/a><\/h2>\n

Vittorio Pace (born 1981) graduated in Pharmacy in 2005 from the University of Perugia (Italy) and subsequently, received the PhD in Chemical Sciences cum laude<\/em> from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2010 working with Profs. Alc\u00e1ntara and Sinisterra. After postdoctoral training at Vienna (Prof. Holzer, 2010-2011), Manchester (Prof. Procter, 2011-2013) and Stockholm (Prof. Olofsson, 2013-2014), he obtained a group leader position at the University of Vienna in 2014. Since 2018 he is holder of a TT Professorship in Drug Synthesis at the University of Vienna. In 2016 he received the Habilitation<\/em> in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Vienna and, in 2017 the Habilitation<\/em> for Full Professor of Organic Chemistry from the Italian Ministry of University. Since March 2020 he moved to the University of Torino as Full Professor of Organic Chemistry. He received several awards including the Ciamician Medal<\/em> of the Italian Chemical Society, the Caglioti Prize<\/em> of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Young Investigator Award<\/em> of the Faculty of Life Sciences at Vienna, the La Roche-Hoffmann Prize<\/em> of the European Society of Medicinal Chemistry, the Viennese<\/em> Innitzer Award <\/em>in 2017, the Habilitation <\/em>Award of the Austrian Chemical Society in 2019 and the Thieme Journal Award <\/em>in 2020. He published > 100 papers in peer reviewed journals and has a h<\/em> index of 27. His research core is represented by the design and development of new chemoselective transformations with functionalized organolithiums.<\/p>\n

Committee Member: Prof. Maria-Jo\u00e3o R. P. Queiroz<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Maria-Jo\u00e3o completed her first degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the University of Porto-Portugal (1986), PhD in Organic Chemistry (1993) in the University of Minho- Portugal and carried out postdoctoral studies in the University of Metz-France (1994). She is Coordinator Researcher since June 2009 and she was the director of the Chemistry Research Centre of the University of Minho from January 2010 to March 2015. Her research led to the award of the Programa Gulbenkian Estimulo \u00e0 Investiga\u00e7\u00e3o prize in 2001. She has a wide range of research interests in medicinal and organic chemistry, including bioactive natural products, photochemistry, heterocyclic drugs for treatment of breast cancer and nanoparticles for drug delivery.<\/p>\n

Committee Member & Webmaster: Dr. Samuel Bertrand<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"Samuel graduated in Chemistry from the Ecole Nationale Sup\u00e9rieure de Chimie of Lille, France followed by a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry, supervised at the Universit\u00e9 d’Angers, France. After a period working for Vegepolys (French competitive cluster, Angers, France), he moved in 2010 to the Ecole de Pharmacie Gen\u00e8ve-Lausanne, Universit\u00e9 de Gen\u00e8ve, Switzerland, where he worked as a post-doctoral researcher on metabolomics and fungal natural product research. Since 2013, he is Assistant Professor at Laboratoire Mer Mol\u00e9cules Sant\u00e9 UFR des Sciences Pharmaceutiques et Biologiques Universit\u00e9 de Nantes, France. His main field of interest is metabolomics approaches in fungal natural product and lipid drug discovery.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President: Dr. Florence McCarthy Florence graduated from the School of Pharmacy, University of Sunderland, UK with a PhD on \u201cSynthesis of Novel Ellipticines as Molecular Probes and DNA Binders\u201d funded by the EPSRC. Following Post-Doctoral Research with Prof. Bill Denny at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre (ACSRC), New Zealand working on inhibitors of theRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4940,"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/4940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gp2a.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}