National projects
Range:
Inhibition of cathepsin X activity as a novel strategy for the treatment of Parkinson's disease
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive degeneration of the dopaminergic projection between the substantia nigra compacta (SNc) and the striatum with associated movement impairments. It represents a very important health issue, as there is no cure for this devastating disease. Although the eth...
01. July 2018 - 30. June 2021 | 3.03 Medical sciences/ Neurobiology
Butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors for alleviating symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
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...
01. July 2018 - 30. June 2020 | 1-09 Natural sciences and Mathematics - Pharmacy
Development of NOD2 agonists and dual NOD2/TLR7 agonistic conjugates as novel vaccine adjuvants
Currently, our world is facing an acute shortage of novel vaccine adjuvants. Adjuvants enhance the immunogenicity of vaccines, therefore they constitute essential components of vaccines. They are needed not only to increase the magnitude of the response but also to guide the type of response to produce the most effective type of immunity against distinct pathogens/t...
01. July 2018 - 30. June 2022 | 3.01 Medical sciences/ Microbiology and immunology
Discovery of new inhibitors of bacterial peptidoglycan biosynthesis enzymes MurA and MurB
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...
01. May 2017 - 30. April 2019 | 1-09 Natural sciences and Mathematics - Pharmacy
Development of multifunctional compounds for treatment of Alzheimer's disease
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...
30. April 2017 - 30. April 2020 | 1-09 Natural sciences and Mathematics - Pharmacy
Cathepsin X inhibitors impair the resistence of tumor cells to antiprotease therapy
The progression of malignant diseases is associated with excessive activity of the proteolytic enzymes involved in tumor growth, angiogenesis, migration, invasion and metastasis. Among them is a group of cysteine cathepsins that are present in normal cells in endosomes and lysosomes and are responsible for intracellular protein catabolism. In tumor cells these enzym...
01. May 2017 - 30. April 2020 | 4.06.01 Biotechnical sciences-Biotechnology-Recombinant DNA technology
Nanotheranostics based on magneto-responsive materials
Various types of cancers represent a great challenge to the health care system nowadays, since 3 million people are diagnosed for cancer annually in Europe. The efficacy of available anticancer medicines and therapeutic approaches is limited and often associated with serious side effects due to unspecific drug distribution in a human body. This problem can be preven...
01. January 2016 - 31. December 2018 | 1-09 Natural sciences and Mathematics - Pharmacy
Identification of new expression regulators of RANKL, a key molecule not only in bone remodelling
Receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL) is a part of the RANKL/RANK/OPG system which plays a crucial role in bone resorption and several other physiological processes. RANKL deregulation has been implicated in osteoporosis (OP), osteoarthritis (OA), autoimmune diseases, chronic inflammatory diseases and various cancers, leading to approval of de...
01. January 2016 - 31. December 2018 | 3.07 Medical sciences/Metabolic and hormonal disorders
Optimization of nitroxoline-based inhibitors of cathepsin B as potential drugs for the treatment of cancer
Human cathepsin B is a lysosomal cysteine protease that has many house-keeping functions, such as intracellular proteolysis. It can act as both an endopeptidase and an exopeptidase, a characteristic that is attributed to a 21-amino-acid insertion above the active site. Dysregulation of cathepsin B activity is associated with many pathological states. The most thorou...
01. January 2016 - 31. December 2017 | 1-09 Natural sciences and Mathematics - Pharmacy