Medicinal and organic chemistry

The main research activity of the division of Medicinal and Organic Chemistry is focused on the synthesis of new organic compounds with potential biological activities. Most importantly, the derivatives of interest are being designed to have antitumor or antibacterial activity; also compounds suitable for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders are of our interest. The synthesis is often motivated by the structures of natural products and by the structures of already known bioactive compounds. To date, a number of structures based on flavonoids, terpenoids, therapeutically used cancerostatics, antibiotics or known receptor binders were synthesized. Based on the results of the biological tests, following research is more focused on the improvement of the earlier obtained compounds in order to find more perspective candidates for the preclinical research.

Another important research activity of the department is focused on the development of new fluorescent probes and labels in order to be able to detect the presence of specific biomolecules within the living cell, to visualize their activation or to clarify the mechanism of action of small molecules and to study cellular signaling pathways.

In order to succeed in both of the research aims, it is important to develop novel synthetic procedures that allow constructing the target structures or simplifying the currently used syntheses. The department is therefore focused on the development of synthetic methodology which should have versatile applicability in the preparation of various organic molecules. Solid phase synthesis and combinatorial chemistry are being commonly used beside the traditional organic synthesis in solution phase. Such combination of the methodologies allows for the synthesis of large numbers of compounds for the development of chemical libraries for the biological testing. The division consists of nine independent research groups:

Medicinal and organic chemistry

Jan Hlaváč Group

Lucie Brulíková Group

Pavel Hradil Group

Petr Cankař Group

Viktor Krchňák Group

Jiří Pospíšil Group

Jakub Stýskala Group

Miroslav Soural Group

Milan Urban Group