National projects

Cancer remains an important cause of mortality and economic losses worldwide. The Bilateral Project provides excellent research in new anticancer discovery for the treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) carcinomas (colorectal, gastric, liver and pancreatic cancers), where hEag1 potassium channels are overexpressed in 75 to 100% cases. GI carcinomas are among the 10 most...

Cholinesterases (ChEs) are polymorphic serine hydrolases that catalyse the hydrolysis of neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) and other esters. Two ChEs are found in vertebrates: acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrycholinesterase (BChE). Both enzymes are involved not only in physiological processes but also in several pathophysiological processes (e.g.  Alzhe...

Scientific background and problem identification. Despite considerable improvements in treatment and survival times, cancer still remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new drugs acting on new targets to improve treatment outcomes, especially against some aggressive types with no standard therapies, s...

Monoamine oxidase (MAO) is a flavin-dependent enzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of amines, and has an important role in the homeostasis of biogenic and exogenic amines. Two isoforms of MAO (i.e., MAO-A and MAO-B) are present in most mammalian tissues and are distinguished by their sensitivities to acetylenic inhibitors clorgyline and L-deprenyl, and by their subst...

The proteasome is an intracellular protease that represents a vital part of the ubiquitin-proteasome system. It degrades a wide range of proteins and has critical functions in many biological processes including cell cycle control, apoptosis, inflammation, and signal transduction. The constitutive isoform (cCP) of the proteasome is expressed in all eukaryotic cells ...

Periodontal disease is perhaps the most common human afflictions, and through its local and systemic effects, it can considerably deteriorate the overall quality of person’s life. Periodontal disease is a biofilm-induced chronic inflammation of the periodontium, where two factors are specifically linked with its pathogenesis: (i) a shift in the oral microbiota...

Memory and cognitive deficits of patients with AD are the result of severely decreased brain levels of ACh. Currently approved ChEs inhibitors in AD therapy (donepezil, galantamine and rivastigmine) alleviate symptoms of the disease by increasing brain levels of ACh. They achieve this by preventing the breakdown of ACh through inhibition of the enzymes that hydrolyz...

Cancer remains an important cause of mortality and economic losses worldwide. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is among the 10 most-frequent forms of cancer in the EU and have the bad prognosis with the current therapeutic options. NHLs are a very heterogeneous group of disorders that comprise some very aggressive subtypes, with no standard for therapy. Even for individua...

Nowadays, we are in a transition era where it is evident that therapy of bacterial infections is not a trivial task, understood by modern medicine and supplied with abundant medicines. Emergence of bacterial resistance, globalisation and access to modern medicinal practice together with a decreasing output of antibacterial discovery pipeline, projects a major concer...

The ageing of the population has resulted in an increase in the number of people with age-related diseases such as dementia. With more than 35 million people affected worldwide, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prominent form of senile dementia. The number of patients afflicted with this progressive neurodegenerative disorder will continue to grow and is e...