The Department of Chemistry published in prestigious journals

“This year, we generated many interesting and promising results,” Professor Kamil Musílek, the Head of the Department, explains. “Over the past few years, we have made large investments into our state-of-the-art labs and we have been fortunate enough to attract excellent researchers for our team. Our research follows several basic directions, such as the research of senescence (neurodegeneration, cancerous growth), toxicology (search for new antidotes) and metabolomics.”

RNDr. Patrik Olekšák, PhD and his colleagues published a paper titled A stereoselective approach in preparation of γ-lactam precursors for oxazolomycine´s synthesis in the Tetrahedron (impact factor 2.2). The paper was featured on the journal’s front cover. It deals with the effective synthesis of γ-lactam compounds, including compounds from the oxazolomycine family. Oxazolomycines are compounds produced by the Streptomyces genus of bacteria, which exhibit some interesting biological properties, and as other compounds from the γ-lactam family, they can potentially become a cure for many diseases. A disadvantage of the compound is its rather complicated isolation from natural sources, which is why several research teams across the globe strive to synthesize it in a laboratory. Dr. Olekšák’s team has managed to synthesize γ-lactam precursors for oxazolomycine by a novel approach using commonly available carbohydrates. The paper also describes the spatial models of the compounds in the key reaction steps of the process. The new findings will help improve the efficiency of the synthesis of these extraordinary chemical structures.

Radomír Jůza, a postgraduate student of Applied Biology and Ecology, published a paper in Medicinal Research Reviews (impact factor 9.7). Together with his colleagues from the Third Faculty of Medicine of Charles University and the Biomedical Research Centre of the University Hospital in Hradec Králové, they wrote about Recent advances with 5‐HT3 modulators for neuropsychiatric and gastrointestinal disorders. The paper was featured on the front cover.

PharmDr. Ondřej Benek, PhD and his colleagues from the Biomedical Research Centre of the University Hospital in Hradec Králové published a review paper titled A Perspective on Multi-target Drugs for Alzheimer’s Disease in the prestigious journal Trends in Pharmacological Sciences (impact factor 13.5): “Our review discusses so-called multi-target drugs (MTD’s) and the current state of research on the potential they hold in the treatment of the Alzheimer’s disease. The principal advantage of MTD’s is that they have multiple effects against the target disease and therefore should be more effective than single-target drugs, at least in theory. This topic has become rather popular over the past few years and has been explored in hundreds of scientific papers and other publications. However, some of the proponents neglect to mention that MTD’s also have their disadvantages and limitations. We draw attention to their possible shortcomings and propose some of the possible solutions. As far as I know, a critical view of MTD’s has been missing in scientific literature, which is why I believe that the review could be interesting and beneficial for other researchers in our field,“ Dr. Benek sums up.