March 2015 – Vanderbilt / Leipzig University

by Carsten Heckmann (LUMAG, 01-2015, 03/12/2015): To name the cities of Leipzig and Nashville in a sentence, could comes up with the idea: it could go on music. Classic here – Country there. But this is no topic for this research report. There is also the research field biochemistry – with a remarkable partnership between both universities. To bridge 7,500 kilometer is not difficult for Prof. Dr. Annette Beck-Sickinger and Prof. Dr. Jens Meiler (Vanderbilt University). Sometimes they feel more like neighbors. “We work extremely well together,” says the Leipzig professor at the Institute of Biochemistry. More than 20 joint publications have appeared since 2008, emerged from around 30 joint projects.

by Peter Schmidt (postdoc at Leipzig University): GPCRs have been shown to play a crucial role in a variety of diseases, such as obesity, metabolic diseases and cancer. Accordingly, they are an attractive target for the investigation of new pharmaceuticals. Di-carba-closo-dodecaboranes(12) (closo-C2B12H12 or carbaboranes) were recently established as pharmacophores. Their unique properties (hydrophobicity, three-dimensional aromaticity, etc.) make them interesting targets for drug development. In this project, specific carbaborane derivatives will be prepared and used either as conjugates with peptides of the melanotropin (MSH) or neuropeptide Y (NPY) family, or as small molecules that impart their action via GPCRs to study and understand their influence on the selectivity and activity. NPY binds

It is the sound of music – a remarkable partnership: Researchers from Leipzig and Nashville investigate molecular mechanisms

Dicovering interaction mode of specific carbaborane derivatives with GPCRs at Vanderbilt University