On Friday April 19th 2024 Professor Alexander N. Zelikin successfully defended his doctoral thesis: Prodrugs: Molecular, macromolecular, and supramolecular opportunities in drug delivery. This was celebrated with family, friends, colleagues and the first grand reunion of the MPCL group! Congratulations Alex for being awarded the higher doctoral degree in natural sciences ..read more

Artificial Internalizing Receptor Affords Fast, Potent, Specific Drug Delivery to the Chemically Engineered Cells Søgaard, A. B., Skovbo, F., Tvilum, A., Hansson, R. F., Zelikin, A. N., Artificial Internalizing Receptor Affords Fast, Potent, Specific Drug Delivery to the Chemically Engineered Cells. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2024, 2400048. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202400048 Abstract Receptors are lipid bilayer-resident molecules that perform a myriad of functions in a cell, from recognition to signaling and solute internalization, and are typically based on ..read more

Zymogens and Transmembrane Activation of Transcription in Synthetic Cells Andersen, D. G., Pedersen, A. B., Jørgensen, M. H., Montasell, M. C., Søgaard, A. B., Chen, G., Schroeder, A., Andersen, G. R., Zelikin, A. N., Zymogens and Transmembrane Activation of Transcription in Synthetic Cells. Adv. Mater. 2023, 2309385. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202309385 Abstract In this work, we engineer synthetic cells equipped with an artificial signaling pathway that connects an extracellular trigger event to the activation of intracellular tran ..read more

The scariest time of the year was celebrated in style with a costume party on the night of Halloween ..read more

Mechanisms of Degradation for Polydisulfides: Main Chain Scission, Self-Immolation, Or Chain Transfer Depolymerization Kristensen, M. M.; Løvschall, K. B.; Zelikin, A. N., Mechanisms of Degradation for Polydisulfides: Main Chain Scission, Self-Immolation, Or Chain Transfer Depolymerization. ACS Macro Lett. 2023, 955-960. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00345 Abstract Organic polydisulfides hold immense potential for the design of recyclable materials. Of these, polymers based on lipoic acid are attractive, as they are based on a natural, renewable resource. Herein, we demonstrate t ..read more

“Antibody-Drug Conjugates to Treat Bacterial Biofilms viaTargeting and Extracellular Drug Release” https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202301340 Abstract The treatment of implant-associated bacterial infections and biofilms is an urgent medical need and a grand challenge because biofilms protect bacteria from the immune system and harbor antibiotic-tolerant persister cells. This need is addressed herein through an engineering of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) that contain an anti-neoplastic drug mitomycin C, which is also a potent antimicrobial against biofilms. The ADCs designed herein release the ..read more

Signal transduction across biological membranes is among the most important evolutionary achievements. Herein, for the design of artificial cells, we engineer fully synthetic receptors with the capacity of transmembrane signaling, using tools of chemistry. Our receptors exhibit similarity with their natural counterparts in having an exofacial ligand for signal capture, being membrane anchored, and featuring a releasable messenger molecule that performs enzyme activation as a downstream signaling event. The main difference from natural receptors is the mechanism of signal transduction, which is ..read more

On October 5. PhD student in the Zelikin group, Josefine Hammer Jakobsen, presented her science to a group of girls from danish high schools that might be interested in pursuing an education within the natural sciences. Girls in danish high schools were invited to visit the deparment, hear about the science, do chemistry on their own and hear from women doing science in chemistry. Josefine presenting her work on HIV therapeutics. We are all proud of Josefine Hammer Jakobsen for being an inspiration for the next generation of women in science ..read more

Friday night the residents of Denmark could see master student Magnus Schou-Jørgensen perform chemistry on the popular entertainment show “Alle mod 1” (all versus one) on DR1. As part of chemistry show at the department of chemistry, Magnus was using chemistry to transfer a flame from person to person. The show features a guest is presented with peculiar scenarios that they are tasked with predicting the outcome. In this particular case, the guest was asked to estimate the time it would take 10 chemistry students to ignite five bowls filled with alcohol, using only a flame that had to be tran ..read more

“Potentiation of Drug Toxicity through Virus Latency Reversal Promotes Preferential Elimination of HIV Infected Cells” https://doi.org/10.1002/adtp.202200113 Eliminating latently infected cells is a highly challenging, indispensable step toward the cure for HIV/AIDS. Hypothesis put forward herein is that the unique HIV protease cut site (Phe-Pro) can be reconstructed using a potent inhibitor of tubulin polymerization, monomethyl auristatin F (MMAF), which features Phe at its C-terminus. This presents opportunities to design prodrugs that are specifically activated by the HIV protease. To this ..read more