This is a past event.

Siegfried Hoefinger o Michigan Tech University will be presenting a special Physics Colloquium. Please join this in-person presentation at 3:00 PM EST Friday (Nov 18).

Development Of Antiviral Drugs – Interplay Of Experimental Methods and Computer Simulations

Abstract:

Pharmaceutical intervention is always a compromise between unwanted side effects and anticipated interference with a pathological condition. A particular class of well-tolerated drugs is formed by small peptides because their building blocks are simply the 20 naturally occurring amino acids – the most fundamental constituents of any living cell. In order to transform such peptidic compounds into effective medical drugs high-affinity binding to the target must be accomplished and is usually the outcome of a tedious and long-lasting optimization process. In this seminar, we shall discuss the recent example of TAT-I24, a peptidic compound with strong antiviral activity against double-stranded DNA viruses, e.g. herpes simplex, cytomegalovirus, adenovirus type 5, SV40, polyomavirus and influenza virus. Classic wet-lab methods will be summarized and the role of computer simulations highlighted in co-designing and streamlining the drug development process.

Bio:

Siegfried Hoefinger received an MSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of Vienna, Austria. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at several academic/industrial sites including IGBMC Strasbourg, the University of Bologna, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (Vienna), FZ Juelich, and MTU before joining the VSC-Team at TU Wien in 2014. His research interests include computational biochemical physics, HPC-driven insight into fundamental science, quantum chemistry, continuum electrostatics, and large-scale simulations of molecular matter.