e-Guest Lecture: Leandro Soter

Nucleos(t)ides: Privileged Structures in the Search for Anticancer and Antiviral Compounds

Leandro Soter, associate professor of the Organic Chemistry Department at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Brasil, is fellow-in-residence at CY AS, invited by laboratory BIOCIS

The nucleosides, as their phosphorylated derivatives, the nucleotides, are important molecules present in every cell and viral particles. This class of molecules participate in important cellular processes such as storage, transcription, and translation of genetic information, as well as signaling molecules.

Once these molecules play such important roles in life evolution and maintenance, since the 50’s they have been used as model compounds for developing analogues that would interfere in such processes. Over the following decades, the multidisciplinary efforts on studying the cell’s chemistry and biology allowed the improvement of strategies and of the rational design of new nucleos(t)ide analogues. Some of which were approved for the treatment of leukemias, gastric cancers and viral infections such as Herpes, AIDS, Hepatitis B and C.

The carboxamide nucleoside ribavirin is an important medicine, in clinical use, that presents the broader spectrum of antiviral activity. It was classified by the WHO as an essential medicine since 2007 and has been used for the treatment of HCV and different types of hemorrhagic fever infections. The recent development of ribavirin analogues with increased stability of the bond linking the base and the carbohydrate, allowed us to study new structures with unprecedent, substitution pattern while retaining its ability for base recognition.

Date: 06 May 2021 from 12:30 to 14:00

The video is online on the CY AS YouTube channel