The eligibility criteria are as follow:

• PhD students (up to 12 months before the end of PhD) and postdocs (up to three years after PhD) in medicinal chemistry or chemical biology. 
• Applicants should be European residents, having received or being currently enrolled in a PhD from a European university.

More info and applications on www.efmc.info/symeres-phd-prize

Deadline for submission: March 15, 2023

This Prize has been established with the support of Symeres.

Awards

• The EFMC-WuXi AppTec Award for Excellence in Chemical Biology

The Award will be given for outstanding research in the field of chemical biology as defined by EFMC in The Chemical Biology-Medicinal Chemistry Continuum: EFMC’s Vision¹, ChemBioChem 2021, 22, 2823-2825 link (free access).

The award will be conferred biennially on the occasion of the European Federation for Medicinal chemistry and Chemical Biology International Symposium on Chemical Biology (EFMC-ISCB 2023), scheduled to take place in Basel, Switzerland on November 16-18, 2023.

Prizes

• EFMC Prize for a Young Medicinal Chemist or Chemical Biologist in Industry
• EFMC Prize for a Young Medicinal Chemist or Chemical Biologist in Academia

To acknowledge and recognise outstanding young medicinal chemists and chemical biologists (≤ 12 years after PhD) working in European industry and academia.

For the 2023 edition, the prize-winners will be invited to give an oral communications at the IX EFMC International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-ASMC 2023), scheduled to take place in Zagreb, Croatia on September 3-7, 2023. Two additional nominees will also be identified and acknowledged as most meritorious runners-up. 

• EFMC-Young Scientists Network PhD Prize

To recognise excellence and accomplishment in postgraduate research.

The prize will consist of a diploma, 500€ and an invitation to deliver an oral communication at the EFMC Young Medicinal Chemists' Symposium (EFMC-YMCS). The 2023 winner will also receive a free registration and a 500€ travel grant to attend both the IX EFMC International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-ASMC 2023) and the 10th EFMC Young Medicinal Chemists' Symposium (EFMC-YMCS 2023) which will take place in Zagreb, Croatia on September 3-7 & September 7-8, 2023.

Pseudomycoicidin is an antibiotic peptide expressed by Bacillus pseudomycoides and is recognised as a potential therapeutic for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant gram-positive bacteria. Following expression, the peptide undergoes a series of post-translational modifications which result in the formation of several disulfide and lanthionine bridges. The product is a complex, criss-crossed protein structure with antibiotic properties. While the activity of these peptides are highly compelling, the true structure of many ‘lantibiotics’ remain unknown.

The authors set out to elucidate the structure of pseudomycoicidin, deciphering the peptide’s post-translational bridge network, like a game of intramolecular sudoku. Pseudomycoicidin was already known to contain six cysteine residues, giving rise to four lanthionine bridges and one disulfide bridge in the lantibiotic structure. The authors rationalised that four of the eight hydroxy-containing residues in the peptide must therefore undergo dehydration to form cysteine-reactive Michael acceptors. These would become the sites for lanthionine bridging.

Using MALDI-TOF-MS and tandem mass spectrometry to measure fragmentation patterns, the authors studied the peptide in the presence or absence of a reducing agent, leading to the localisation of the disulfide bridge position. They next performed an alanine scan and treated the resulting peptide with the dehydrating enzyme PseM.  Mass spectrometry allowed the number of dehydration reactions in the mutant peptide to be counted. Wherever three dehydrations had occurred rather than four, the authors had identified a position for lanthionine bridging. Fragmentation patterns were also contrasted between the wild-type and mutant peptides to identify new sites of fragmentation. The appearance of a new fragmentation cluster in the mutant was reasoned to be the location of a lanthionine bridge in the wild-type peptide.

Through a process of elimination, the authors were able to propose an elaborate double ring system for pseudomycoicidin. The resulting globular structure hints towards pseudomycoicidin functioning as a disruptor of bacterial cell wall biosynthesis, though more studies on this mode of action are required. Interrogating the structure-activity relationships of these complex polycyclic peptides may highlight new strategies for combatting antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

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Diversity in science refers to cultivating talent, while promoting full inclusion across the community. In medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, it enhances creativity and encourages contributions from multiple perspectives, leading to better decision making and broader scientific impact. The European Federation for Medicinal chemistry and Chemical biology (EFMC) embraces and promotes diversity, to ensure representation of all talents, and enable equality of opportunity through fairness and transparency. EFMC has historically paid continuous attention to diversity in terms of culture, geography and equilibrium between academia and industry, with over the last few years a focus on increasing gender balance, aiming at a fair representation of the scientific community and equal opportunities independently of gender. EFMC promotes cultural diversity as it reinforces openness and mutual respect. All scientific organizations of a scope compatible with its remit are welcome within EFMC, where their members benefit from a welcoming, psychologically safe, and stimulating environment. Herein, we describe the state of diversity within the EFMC, how the situation has evolved over the years and where diversity should be further encouraged.

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How did you get interested in Computational Chemistry?

I always had a keen interest in natural sciences, especially in how the body works on the molecular level. For example, how do cells/ organs operate; how do xenobiotics manipulate our being. For me, the main focus point was clearly chemistry, therefore I started to study chemistry at the University of Cologne. I worked on my Diploma thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology (University of Cologne), this being my first steps into medicinal chemistry.

During an Erasmus stay at the University of Bern working at the organic synthesis of PNA, I got the first time in contact with computational chemistry in modelling different PNA/DNA complexes. To follow up on the computational part I did my PhD-Thesis at the Department for Biochemistry (University of Cologne), “Development of a distance- and direction dependent knowledge based potential for the prediction of protein thermostability”. Hooked by computational chemistry I moved more into the area of cheminformatics during my PostDocs.

This landed me a position at the global chemoinformatic group at AstraZeneca.

Tell us more about your current position at AstraZeneca? 

I currently work as a teamleader for the computational chemistry group in R&I at AstraZeneca. We are currently eight people in addition to a handful of students, graduates and PostDocs. I am always willing to discuss possibilities of doing a Master Thesis within the group, collaborations and visiting students.

We all work in pre-clinical drug discovery projects as the computational chemistry responsible, chemistry lead or project co-lead. The way we are organized is that we follow a project from idea to the clinical candidate, being exposed to all the challenges and stages of such an endeavour. Curiosity, resilience and scientific rigor are key skills to have, besides solid knowledge of medicinal & computational chemistry. We apply a wide range of methods, software and tasks for the different phases. Having a background in cheminformatics my research interest resolves around machine learning and its challenges in the application in drug discovery. 

What we would like to achieve is to find a substance which is able to have a positive effect on a given condition. How we do this is like solving the rubics cube, without looking at it and the cube constantly changing colors with swapping fields.

What do you consider your greatest achievement in your scientific career?

I am very proud of the science we do within the team and with Master and Graduate students as PostDocs or visiting PhDs. Scientifically I consider our publication in the field of cheminformatics introducing ChemistryConnect a milestone – collating at this scale SAR data was at that time industry leading. In terms of medicinal chemistry the work in PI3K was the most satisfying, resulting in several publications and clinical candidates. From a machine learning perspective I am very happy about my collaboration with Marwin Segler 2016 leading to REINVENT the first RNN molecular generator with impact across the industry in the field of AI lead drug discovery.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to move forward with studies in the field? 

Tips: be resilient, honest, respectful, curious, understand the intend and read Richard Feynman´s speech of cargo cult science. If you are interested in medicinal chemistry synthesis chemistry excellence is a must, but also start looking into pharmacology and physical organic chemistry. The later is also true for computational chemistry. Instead of synthesis excellence you should be able to program to understand the methods behind the tools. Always be prepared and able to question them.

What is the most embarrassing thing you have done in the lab while doing experiments, e.g. explosions?

I did a lot of mistakes and stupid things while learning and I wouldn’t consider them as embarrassing. One good lesson was in the beginning of my studies during practical work. Heating up a glass pipette to change its form (forgot the reason why), took it out of the flame and waiting a couple of seconds and asking “is it still hot?” while touching it. It was hot and I have still the scar on my finger.

What are your recommendations for a book, podcast, website, blog, YouTube channel or film?

The blog In the Pipeline from Derek Lowe. Modern Physical Chemistry from EV Anslyn and Dougherty. I have several must-read papers for newcomers in my team.

Which field of medicinal chemistry do you consider the most promising for the future?

In terms of computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry it will be automated/autonomous design, make and test cycles, including high throughput experimentation.

• Addressing Underexplored Anti-infective Targets
  Prof. Anna K. H. Hirsch (Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutcial Research Saarland, Germany)
• Science Communication is not only for the public
  Dr Elodie Chabrol (Freelance Science Communicator, France) 
• Round Table Discussion: "Challenges and Opportunities for Women in STEM"
  • Prof. Anna K. H. Hirsch (Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutcial Research Saarland, Germany)
  • Dr Elodie Chabrol (Freelance Science Communicator, France) 
  • Prof. Zaneta Nikolovska-Coleska (University of Michigan, United States)
  • Panelists to be announced 

More info and registration on www.medchembio.online. Registration to the event is free and open to all.

Interested in becoming the exclusive sponsor of the event? Reach out to us at  medchembioonline@ysn-efmc.info.

Following this conceptual paper, the discovery of the copper catalyzed version of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition (independently and contemporaneously by Sharpless and Meldal) provided the architype for what the best click reactions could do – and the rapid explosion in application of this reaction across chemical disciplines demonstrated how much of a pent-up demand there was for such simple and predictable chemistry. As a perfect embodiment of the click concept, it is fitting that the azide-alkyne cycloaddtion is now colloquially known as the “click reaction”. And so the Sharpless and Meldal portion of the prize relates to the formulation of the click chemistry concept (Sharpless) and the discovery of the Cu-catalyzed version of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition (Sharpless and Meldal).

Bertozzi also introduced new ideas and a new variation of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition, but her motivations were firmly rooted in the nascent field of chemical biology. She recognized that chemical reactions that could reliably operate within the biological milieu (and without damaging native biological processes) would constitute an especially important tool in biology research. Reactions like these – which would operate orthogonally to biological chemistry – would offer the opportunity to do selective chemistry in living cells and organisms, thereby offering chemical control or chemical monitoring of biological functions. In the early 2000’s the chemical toolbox that would constitute these aptly dubbed “bioorthogonal reactions” was small and crude (oxime formation, Staudinger ligation). Bertozzi, however, would change that with the development of a strain-promoted version of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition. Whereas the copper-catalyzed variant of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition worked great in the round-bottom flask, or in cell lysates, it fell short in living cells or whole organisms because free copper is typically toxic to cells. Even in cases where it might be tolerated, adding large amounts of copper to any cellular or organismal experiment would undermine the trust in the biological significance of any measurements (in other words the click is not bioorthogonal since copper is deeply embedded in biology). The development of a strain-promoted version of the azide-alkyne cycloadditon provided a truly bioorthogonal ligation that could be used in cells and organisms. Today, the Bertozzi variation of the azide-alkyne cycloaddition is in widespread use in chemical biology and the ideas she formulated has stimulated synthetic chemists to build a large repertoire of bioorthogonal reactions.

This was an unusual Nobel prize because it constituted elements of concept building (click chemistry, bioorthogonal chemistry) as well as fundamental reaction development (Cu-catalyzed and strain promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition) under a single banner. Us practicing chemical biologists should commend the Nobel committee for their flexible thinking in rewarding all the different ways scientific thought and discovery can shape a field.