REPU MAGAZINE N 3
2016 REPU Research Projects
2017
REPU - Chemistry
Diego Nieto - University of Navarra
Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department, Spain
Malaria is a life-threatening disease that is typically transmitted through
the bite of an Anopheles mosquito infected with a Plasmodium species
organism. This tropical disease continues affecting large parts of the
world and there are no long-term sustainable treatments available yet.
Currently, artemisinin-based combination therapies are the mainstay of
antimalarial treatment but in recent years parasite resistance against
artemisinin and its derivatives has emerged and spread. In order to
handle this challenge, new antimalarial entities are needed. Potent
antimalarial drugs, such as quinine, mefloquine, lumefantrine and
halofantrine owe their high antiplasmodial activity and ADMET values to
the presence of an arylamino alcohol moiety into the structure. Based on
this antiplasmodial pharmacophore, Diego Nieto worked in the Laboratory
of Synthesis of the Department of Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
of the University of Navarra, mainly in the development of new molecules
that could meet the structure, activity and ADMET requirements of an active antimalarial drug, a crucial step in
the drug discovery process.
nanoREPU
Ricardo Vilchez - McMaster University
Turak Laboratory, Canada
In the past years, the price of fossil fuel has increased more than anytime
in recent memory. Hence, the race for an alternate energy source to
replace or lessen the use of fossil fuels has risen. The activity of creating
electricity using organic solar cells is an example of a sustainable energy
source. This technology also uses nanoparticles that exhibit unique
properties, like Nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO2), which attracts
significant attention in the field of photocatalysis, photonic crystals, optical
emission and sensing, because of its optical and catalytic properties.
During his internship at the Organic Electronic Interface Laboratory at
McMaster University, Ricardo focused on a solution of the charge
transport problem on organic solar cells through the synthesis of titanium
dioxide nanoparticles by reverse micelle technique and characterizing
them with an atomic force microscope (AFM). Also, he studied the array
order of the micelles and how can change it.
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