Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived human macrophages as an infection model for Leishmania donovani.

The parasite Leishmania donovani is one of the species causing visceral leishmaniasis in humans, a deadly infection claiming up to 40,000 lives each year. The current drugs for leishmaniasis treatment have severe drawbacks and there is an urgent need to find new anti-leishmanial compounds. However, the search for drug candidates is complicated by the intracellular lifestyle of Leishmania.

Discovery of the first low-shift positive allosteric modulators for the muscarinic M1 receptor.

Positive modulation of the muscarinic M1-receptor has for a long time attracted scientists and drug developers for the potential treatment of Alzheimer's disease or Schizophrenia. The precognitive potential of M1 activation has however not been clinically demonstrated as a result of side effects associated both with agonists and positive allosteric modulators (PAM's) of the M1-receptor. To avoid excessive activation of the M1-receptor we have designed a new screening format and developed the first low-shift positive allosteric modulators for the M1 receptor.

Impact of stereospecific intramolecular hydrogen bonding on cell permeability and physicochemical properties.

Profiling of eight stereoisomeric T. cruzi growth inhibitors revealed vastly different in vitro properties such as solubility, lipophilicity, pKa, and cell permeability for two sets of four stereoisomers. Using computational chemistry and NMR spectroscopy, we identified the formation of an intramolecular NH→NR3 hydrogen bond in the set of stereoisomers displaying lower solubility, higher lipophilicity, and higher cell permeability.