Catalysis and Medicinal Chemistry

the team

Scientific leaders

• Frédéric Bihel, Research Director

• Martine Schmitt, Senior Researcher

Who we are... What we do...

Our research group is located in the Faculty of Pharmacy in Illkirch, near Strasbourg (France). As a part of the Laboratory for Therapeutic Innovation (University of Strasbourg, CNRS, UMR7200), our researches are mainly focused on design and synthesis of new pharmacological tools for a better understanding of living systems. We explore several therapeutic fields (pain modulation, inflammatory diseases, cancer or rare diseases, etc) through the establishment of national or international scientific networks involving molecular biologists, pharmacologists, etc. Our aim is to characterize the newly synthesized molecules through both in vitro and in vivo biological models.

As organic chemists, we developed a great expertise in azaheterocyclic chemistry, either in the building of innovant scaffolds or in their decoration. By their drug-like properties, azaheterocycles are present in a very large majority of drugs. More particularly, we have a long experience in the synthesis of amidine-based systems (aminopyridazine, aminophthalazine, etc). For 10 years, we participated in the breakthrough of metal-catalyzed reactions, opening a wide field of research in the synthesis of C-C and C-N bonds. Our works focused on pallado-catalyzed reactions (Suzuki-Miyaure, Sonogashira and Buchwald-Hartwig), applied to the decoration of azaheterocycles. Moreover, taken into account the importance of peptides in the living organisms, we investigated since few years the synthesis of small peptides, using liquid- or solid-phase technologies. Our aim is to establish a "link" between small peptides and heterocycles compounds.

Our fields of expertise

• Heterocyclic chemistry

• Metal-catalyzed chemistry

• Green chemistry in micellar medium

• Peptide and pseudopeptide synthesis

• Medicinal chemistry

Our biological targets

•  G Protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)

• NPFF1 & 2, GPR10, GPR54 and GPR103
• µ Opioid rececptor (MOR)

• Kinases and phosphodiesterases

• Inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, IL1β)

• Other targets

• ASICs channels
• TSPO
• Sigma

Our therapeutic targets

• Pain

• Post-operative pain
• Neuropathic pains
• Hyperalgesia

• Inflammatory diseases

• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Asthma

• Neurodegenerative diseases

• Alzheimer, Parkinson, etc

• Cancer

• Rares or Neglected diseases

• Charcot-Marie-Tooth X
• Friedreich's ataxia
• Malaria