Education
- Ph.D., Organic Chemistry - Research group of Prof Eric Koo, Stanford University
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, Research group of Prof Dario Neri, ETH Zurich
- M.Sc., Molecular and Biological Chemistry, EPFL
Research Interests
My research group focuses on the interfaces of Chemistry, Biology and Medicine with the aim of developing novel types of therapeutic agents, imaging probes and diagnostic assays. One particular research goal is the development of DNA-encoded chemical libraries as prospective tools for drug discovery and their application to lead development for cancer-associated targets. DNA-encoded libraries are collections of compounds in which each small molecule is uniquely encoded by a covalently linked DNA sequence. Panning encoded libraries for the protein of interest enriches target[1]binding molecules and high-throughput sequencing of the DNA-barcodes enable the straightforward identification of the corresponding structures. Encoded library technology allows screening ultra-large compound collections in a one-pot protocol. In 19 addition to setting up a platform of libraries and screening them for drug candidates, we aim to expand this technology beyond the identification of affinity ligands and to constantly improve methodologies for library synthesis, encoding and screening.
Further research interests include the development and optimization of ligand-based tumor targeting strategies as therapeutic and imaging modalities and binary molecular probes for clinical diagnostics.