Back to Journals

Drug Design, Development and Therapy

ISSN: 1177-8881


Professor Frank M Boeckler

Professor Boeckler

Department of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Laboratory for Molecular Design and Pharmaceutical Biophysics, Tuebingen, Germany

Dr. Boeckler is a W3 Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design at the Department of Pharmacy and Biochemistry at Eberhard Karls University in Tuebingen. Since 2014, he is also member of the Center of Bioinformatics (ZBIT) of the University of Tuebingen. At the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, he is head of the laboratory of Molecular Design & Pharmaceutical Biophysics, which combines Chemical Biology, Molecular and Structural Biology and Biophysics, as well as Computational Chemistry and Molecular Design. His work is dedicated to understanding molecular interactions as the foundation for chemical biology and drug discovery, to apply theoretical and biophysical methods to cancer research, and to develop novel peptide-based toolkits.

Studying receptor-ligand interactions in GPCR drug discovery from computational models to pharmacological consequences, Dr. Boeckler received his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry with summa cum laude at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen (Germany). He specialized in computational chemistry and drug design, ranging from QM methods to in silico screening. As a visiting scientist, he did research projects at the ETH Zurich (Behavioral Neurobiology) and at the Philipps University Marburg (Drug Design). In 2006, he joined Prof. Sir Alan R. Fersht at the MRC Center for Protein Engineering in Cambridge/UK as DFG and later Marie Curie fellow and discovered there p53 mutant stabilizers as potential new cancer therapeutics (PNAS 2008, 105, 10360). While working in Cambridge at the interface of experiment and theory, he focused on molecular biology and biophysics. In 2008, he was appointed as Professor (W2tt) for Bioanalytics at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Munich. In 2010, he moved to Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen as Professor for Medicinal Chemistry/Drug Design, where he now heads the Laboratory for Molecular Design & Pharmaceutical Biophysics. Since 2008, his lab has been developing methods and tools for improving the understanding and applicability of molecular interactions, particularly halogen bonding (XB). As innovative interactions, based on electron anisotropy and the formation of the σ-hole, halogen bonds bear the potential to extent the chemical space of pharmacophores in ligands targeting certain areas of the biological space (J. Med. Chem. 2013, 56, 1363). Tools and methods developed in the Boeckler lab range from XB scoring functions (J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2015, 55, 687) to halogen-enriched fragment libraries (JACS 2012, 134, 6810).

Dr. Boeckler serves as member of different Scientific and Editorial Advisory Boards. In 2015 he has joined the team of editors of the RÖMPP Encyclopedia covering the area of Pharmacy and Medicine. He has received multiple awards, including the Klaus-Grohe prize in Medicinal Chemistry, as well as the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) Young Medicinal Chemist in Academia Prize (2016).


Dr Tuo Deng

Dr Deng

Center for Bioenergetics, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA

Dr. Deng earned a Bachelor Degree with honor from Peking University and obtained a Ph.D. in Biology from Tsinghua University in 2006. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute and a faculty member of the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. Deng began study on metabolic diseases in 2001, and continued his research in the field of obesity and diabetes.  In his Ph.D. study, Dr. Deng has conducted vital studies elucidating the target genes of PPARgamma, as well as discovering and developing novel PPAR ligands for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases. During his study in Chipscreen Biosciences, Dr. Deng made significant contributions to discover a serious of PPAR agonists and HDAC inhibitors for the treatment of diabetes and cancer. He is the co-inventor of a number of granted patents.

During his postdoctoral training, Dr. Deng was focused on the identification of the trigger signal of obesity-induced adipose inflammation, which is the major contributor of most obesity related diseases.  He made the paradigm shattering discovery that adipocyte MHCII (class II major histocompatibility complex) triggers obesity-induced adipose inflammation by initiating adipose resident T cell activation, suggesting that the adipocytes act as antigen presenting cells to initiate obesity-induced adipose inflammation and systemic complications. This study was published in Cell Metabolism as a cover story and, in turn, attracted attention with editorials in many of the leading scientific journals and in the local and national press and formed the basis of his successful AHA young scientist award. At this stage of his career, Dr. Deng has continued to investigate adipose inflammation and obesity-related diseases.


Dr Qiongyu Guo

Dr Guo

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

Dr. Guo is an assistant professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. She earned her BS degree in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2004. She obtained her PhD in Macromolecular Science and Engineering at the Case Western Reserve University in 2010. She received her postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Guo has authored 20 peer-reviewed research publications and review articles. Her research focuses on engineering biomaterials through translational approaches so that the clinical use may be realized to enhance human health and well-being. She specialized in developing drug delivery systems and functional biomaterials for tissue engineering and cancer treatments. She has extensive experience on biodegradable drug-eluting stent, shape memory nanosystem, light activated cell migration, biomimetic artificial cornea and musculoskeletal regeneration.


Professor Anastasios Lymperopoulos

Professor Lymperopoulos

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA

Dr. Anastasios Lymperopoulos' career started by earning M.Sc. in Medicinal Chemistry followed by Ph.D. in Pharmacology, after graduating from the School of Pharmacy of the University of Patras, Greece. His major turning point was in 2004, when he joined the lab of Dr. Walter Koch, a former postdoctoral fellow of Nobel laureate Professor Robert Lefkowitz's lab at Duke University. During a 5-year postdoctoral tenure there, he had several successes, awards and honors, most prominent among which was elections as Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) with its Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences (BCVS) and as Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), as well as a 5-year Scientist Development Grant award from the American Heart Association (AHA). In addition, Dr. Lymperopoulos has been an AHA post-doctoral research fellow for a total of three years in the past, and his postdoctoral fellowship application with AHA in 2007 got an unusual 1-year extension based on its exceptionally high score. He has also been a finalist for the AHA-sponsored Melvin L. Marcus Young Investigator Award in Basic Cardiovascular Sciences, and for the Cardiovascular Research Award of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), he holds three (provisional) research patents, and currently serves as associate editor of four peer-reviewed journals, published by esteemed publishers (British Pharmacological Society, Wolters Kluwer Health, Dove Medical Press). Dr. Lymperopoulos has edited one textbook published by Springer and authored several book chapters. As well as serving as a regular peer-reviewer for several prestigious journals, including British Journal of Pharmacology, Circulation Research, and American Journal of Cardiology.

Finally, Dr. Lymperopoulos has published in various prestigious scientific journals: Nature Medicine; Circulation; JACC; PNAS; JBCCirc. Res., to name a few (for an extensive list of his >50 peer-reviewed publications see MEDLINE) and his h-index is 13 (>1000 total citations, as of January 2016). Dr. Lymperopoulos currently serves at Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy faculty at the Associate Professor level and mentors several PhD and PharmD students in cardiovascular research in his lab.


Professor Manfred Ogris

Professor Ogris

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Laboratory of MacroMolecular Cancer Therapeutics (MMCT), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Dr. Ogris is Professor for Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Vienna and Head of the Laboratory for MacroMolecular Cancer Therapeutics (MMCT). After studying biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, he carried out his PhD at the Vienna Biocenter on the development and in vivo application of tumor targeted, polycation based gene delivery systems. During his postdoctoral stay at the CRC Institute of Cancer Research, University of Birmingham/UK, he worked on peptide based endosomal escape mechanisms to improve synthetic gene delivery systems. In 2001, Dr. Ogris joined the Faculty of Pharmacy and Chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich as a work group leader at the Chair of Pharmaceutical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. The focus of his ‘Vectorology’ research group was to develop specific and efficient plasmid and siRNA based nucleic acid vectors for treatment of metastatic cancers in combination with chemo- and radiation therapy. In 2009, Dr. Ogris obtained his venia docendi (habilitation) for Pharmaceutical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. In 2013, he was appointed as a full professor for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the Department for Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences of the University Vienna, where he founded and heads the MMCT lab. The lab has a strong focus on the development of macromolecular formulations for targeted drug delivery and the development of nucleic acid based therapies.


Dr Georgios Panos

Dr Panos

Department of Ophthalmology, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Dr. Georgios D. Panos is a Consultant Ophthalmologist with a special interest in Vitreoretinal Surgery and Medical Retina at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, United Kingdom and an Honorary Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology within the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK.

Dr. Panos graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2007 and received his Doctoral Degree in Medicine (Clinical Research in Medical Retina, Ophthalmology) from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, in 2013. He did his residency training in Ophthalmology at the University Hospitals of Fribourg (Switzerland), Alexandroupolis (Greece), and Geneva (Switzerland) and received his Certificate of Completion of Training in Ophthalmology (Board Certification) in 2014. He has also received a Professional Certificate in Medical Statistics from the Stanford School of Medicine (CA, USA) in 2021 (one-year Professional Certificate Program). During the last six months of his residency training and after its completion, he worked as "Chef de Clinique" (Chief Resident – Junior Consultant) in Paediatric Ophthalmology and Neuro – Ophthalmology at the Department of Ophthalmology, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland for 27 months. In January 2015 he moved to the UK where he completed his fellowships in Medical Retina, Cataract Surgery and Vitreoretinal Surgery at the Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, University of Cambridge, at Whipps Cross University Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust and at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

His teaching experience includes being a Tutor of Ophthalmology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland for two academic years (2012-13, 2013-14) lecturing the fifth-year medical students on various topics of ophthalmology, and being an invited Faculty Staff Member in the context of the Master Degree Program "Imaging in Ophthalmology" at the School of Medicine, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece from 2015–2019. He was responsible for the training of the ophthalmology trainees at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland, from October 2012 – December 2014, and has actively participated in the clinical and surgical training of the ophthalmology trainees and fellows in the U.K. since 2015. He was appointed Honorary Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology within the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham in March 2023.

Dr. Panos serves on the editorial and advisory boards of five prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals, is a regular reviewer for several journals, and is a full member of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

His research is mainly focused on ocular pharmacology, retinal diseases, vitreoretinal and cataract surgery, and ophthalmic imaging. His PubMed publication list can be found here.


Dr Jianbo Sun

Dr Sun

Dongguan Key Laboratory of Chronic Inflammatory Diseases, The First Dongguan Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China

Jianbo Sun, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Department of Scientific Research, The First Dongguan Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China. Dr. Sun received Ph.D. in Microbiology in 2007 from China Agricultural University, obtained postdoctoral training and worked in Mount Sinai School of Medicine (2008 to 2011) and Columbia University (2011-2016), then moved to Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou (2016-2021) and the current affiliation since 2021. Their main research interest focuses on the phenotype, function, regulating mechanism and application of regulatory B cells in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, and the mechanism of immune regulation by anti-inflammatory components of Chinese herbal medicine as well as the drug research and development based on modulation of immune imbalance.

Dr. Sun has 3 authorized patents, 3 book chapters, and more than 30 papers published in prestigious international journals. He is a reviewer of more than 10 international reputable journals and Review Editor of Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, and Frontiers in Immunology.


Prof. Dr. Tin Wui Wong

Prof. Dr. Wong

Non-Destructive Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Centre, Smart Manufacturing Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Selangor, Malaysia

Professor Dr Wong Tin Wui obtained his PhD degree from the National University of Singapore in 1999. He is presently the lecturer and principal fellow at the Non-Destructive Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Centre, Smart Manufacturing Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA. His research areas are primarily focused on oral, transdermal and pulmonary nanodrug delivery. He has published over 120 peer reviewed articles. Professor Wong is the founder of Non-Destructive Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Centre, Malaysia and Sino-Malaysia Molecular Oncology and Traditional Chinese Medicine Delivery Joint Research Centre, Medical College, Yangzhou University. China. He serves as the visiting professor of UCSI University and Taylor’s University, Malaysia and National University of Singapore, lecture professor of Yangzhou University, China, and adjunct professor of Nirma University, India.


Prof. Dr. Yan Zhu

Prof. Dr. Zhu

State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Professor Yan Zhu obtained his PhD from Harvard University and completed postdoctoral trainings at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He started his research career as assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, as one of the founding members and an investigator of the Molecular Cardiology Research Center. He also served as director of Laboratory of Molecular Physiology at St. Elizabeth Medical Center, and director of research operation in Molecular Cardiology Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center. He held several adjunct lecture professorships in China, including Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Nankai University. In 2011, he returned to China as a recruit of the Tianjin “Qian-Ren Ji-Hua” talent program and now works full-time as a professor of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He currently serves as the executive associate director of the Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine and director of R & D Center of Chinese Medicine at Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine.

Professor Zhu has been engaged in cardiovascular studies by combining molecular biology, physiology and pharmacology. His research has been supported by grants from NIH RO1 in USA and MOST 973 project in China. He has published more than 70 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals such as Science, Nature Medicine, and PNAS. His current research focuses on phenotype-based drug screen and discovery from herbal and other natural resources, applying systems biology and network pharmacology techniques to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of complex formula of Chinese medicine in chronic, metabolic and degenerative diseases such as thrombosis, diabetes, and aging. 

 


Editorial Board

Janice Aldrich-Wright, Professor, Deputy Dean, Graduate Research School, Academic lead of the WSU Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) initiative, School of Science and Health, Conjoint Position School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Australia

Francis Ali-Osman, Professor of Neurosurgery, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA

Mansoor M. Amiji, University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Advanced Nano-Delivery Systems (BANDS), Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Soo Kyung Bae, Associate professor, College of Pharmacy, The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, Republic of Korea

Daniela Carbone, Assistant Professor at University of Palermo, S.S.D. CHIM/08 Medicinal Chemistry, S.C. 03/D1 Pharmaceutical, Toxicological and Nutraceutical-alimentary Chemistry and Technologies, Italy.

James M. Cook, University Distinguished Professor, Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Wei Duan, Alfred Deakin Professor , Deakin University School of Medicine, Melbourne, Australia.

Martin Egli, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA

Sanjay Garg, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Co-Director, Centre for Pharmaceutical Innovation (CPI), University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.

Beom-Jin Lee, Dean and Professor, College of Pharmacy, Ajou University, Korea

David M. Lubman, Maude T. Lane Professor of Surgery, Professor of Pathology and Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Cezary Marcinkiewicz, Adjunct Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA.

John J. Rossi, Lidow Family Research Chair, Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Dean, Graduate School of Biological Sciences, Beckman Research Insitute of the City of Hope, Duarte, CA, USA

Wolfgang Sadee, Dr.rer.nat, Professor Emeritus, Cancer Biology and Genetics, The Ohio State University and Professor Emeritus, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of California San Francisco, USA

Holger Stark, Univ.-Prof. Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf, Germany

Valter Travagli, Professor in Pharmaceutical Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

Mark Trudell, Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry, University of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Gretchen M. Unger, Chief Scientific Officer, GeneSegues, Inc., Chaska, MN, USA

Scott Waldman, Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Cancer Biology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Michael J. Waring, Professor of Chemotherapy, University of Cambridge, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK

Junmin Zhang, Ph.D, School of Pharmacy & State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.