Conference: «Building Defined Protein-Drug Conjugates for Targeted Cancer Therapy»
Speaker: Gonçalo Bernardes (University of Cambridge)
Speaker: Gonçalo Bernardes (University of Cambridge)
Place: Aula de Seminarios del CiQUS
Hour: 12:15 h
Chemical covalent protein modification is a fundamental mechanism in Chemical Biology and Protein Therapeutics. For example: (i) biophysical probes can be attached to proteins for imaging and tracking; (ii) post-translational modifications or suitable mimics may be installed at pre-defined sites on proteins to provide key biological insights; (iii) lipids may be attached to small therapeutic peptides to extend their half-life in circulation, and (iv) protein conjugates are important therapeutic targets (e.g. antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for cancer therapy and carbohydrate-based vaccines against HIV, cancer, and malaria).
Our research programme is at the interfaces of Chemistry and Biology. It aims at developing novel chemoselective methods and their use for selective protein/ligand labeling in vitro and in vivo to understand and influence human disease.
About the lecturer
Gonçalo Bernardes is a Group Leader at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK where he holds a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship. He also the Director of the Chemical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Unit at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Lisbon in 2004. He then moved to the University of Oxford where he completed his D.Phil. degree in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. Ben Davis working on reaction engineering for site-selective protein modification. He was awarded a Marie-Curie Fellowship to perform postdoctoral studies with Prof. Peter Seeberger, and then returned to Portugal to work as a Group Leader at Alfama Inc., a spin-out company dedicated to the development of Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecules (CO-RMs). Before starting his independent career, Gonçalo was an EMBO Fellow in the group of Prof. Dario Neri at the ETH Zürich where he developed novel vascular targeting antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for cancer therapy.