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Joint YSN-YMCC Grant to attend ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers

To support the participation of young researchers to attend transatlantic conferences and offer them the opportunity to broaden their network outside the national-regional scope, the EFMC Young Scientists Network (YSN) and the ACSMEDI Young Medicinal Chemists Committee (YMCC) decided to fund a joint grant.

Up to two grants of 1500€ covering economy flight and up to 3-nights accommodation will be awarded to facilitate attendance to ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers. The prizes will be allocated to European researchers when the conference takes place in the United States, and to American researchers when the conference takes place in Europe. In addition, the awardees will be garanteed a poster presentation, and will be offered the opportunity to apply for an oral communication.

We proudly announce the names of the awardees of the 2025 YSN-YMCC Grant to attend ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers.

  • Dr Camilla Scarpellini, University of Antwerp, Belgium 
  Camilla Scarpellini is a postdoctoral researcher in the Medicinal Chemistry laboratory at the University of Antwerp (UAMC). After studying Pharmacy at the University of Bologna, Camilla joined the research group of Prof. Koen Augustyns (UAMC) in 2018 as a PhD student funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (IT-DED³). Camilla gained additional experience at the University of Tübingen and Karlsruher Institute of Research and Technology, Germany; GSK Vaccines, Italy; King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; Instituto Universitario de Oftalmobiología Aplicada, Spain; Symeres, The Netherlands and VIB-UGent, Belgium. Her current research focuses on the lead optimisation of novel ferroptosis inhibitors, a novel mechanism of regulated cell death with emerging therapeutic potential.

  • Dr Dimitrios-Ilias Balourdas, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 
 

Dimitrios-Ilias Balourdas earned his Pharmacy degree from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2019. As part of the Erasmus+ program, he completed his diploma dissertation in the Knapp group at Goethe University Frankfurt, focusing on the characterization of epigenetic inhibitors for treating aggressive pancreatic carcinomas. In August 2020, Ilias joined the Structural Genomics Consortium in Frankfurt as a PhD student, working on targeting transcription dysregulation for precision oncology. In 2024, he became a postdoctoral researcher in the Braakman/van der Sluijs group. As a member of the newly founded FLOW Consortium, his research focuses on the folding fitness of CFTR.
 
Congratulations to both for their outstanding application, as well as to the other worthy candidates.
 
Each grant of up to 1500€ will be used to cover registration, economy flight and up to 3-nights accommodation to attend the upcoming edition of the ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers will take place in Chicago, IL, United States on May 12-15, 2025. Each one of them will present their research at the conference with a Poster, and will be invited to submit an abstract for Oral Communication. 

We proudly announce the names of the first awardees of the YSN-YMCC Grant to attend ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers.

  • Dr Aleša Bricelj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 
 

Aleša Bricelj obtained her master’s degree in pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University in Ljubljana in 2019. She is currently a fourth-year PhD student under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Izidor Sosic and Prof. Marko Anderluh at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana. Her research focuses on utilising PROTACs for targeted protein degradation of various proteins involved in malignancies.
 
  • Dr Andreas Luttens, Uppsala University, Sweden
  Andreas Luttens has received his Master's degree in Molecular Design in Chemistry from Ghent University, Belgium. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Molecular Life Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Andreas joined the lab of Jens Carlsson in 2017 and works on novel strategies to navigate vast chemical spaces using virtual screening
 
Congratulations to both for their outstanding application, as well as to the other worthy candidates.
 
Each grant of up to 1500€ will be used to cover registration, economy flight and up to 3-nights accommodation to attend the upcoming edition of the ACSMEDI|EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers will take place in Boston, United States on June 10-13, 2023. Each one of them will present their research at the conference with a Poster, and will be invited to submit an abstract for Oral Communication.