Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacology
Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacology
Resources and Equipment
The synthetic work is performed at the Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the University of Barcelona (UB), Barcelona’s main university and Spain’s leading research university.
The Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry has all the equipment required for conducting state-of-the-art organic and medicinal chemistry research, from basic synthetic equipment (rotavapors, heaters, vacuum oven, etc.), medium-sized equipment (automated column chromatography systems, microwave oven for organic reactions, parallel synthesizer, etc.) and analytical equipment (HPLC, FT/IR spectrometer, gas-liquid chromatograph, etc.) to the larger equipment required to purify and characterize novel compounds, namely two high field (400 MHz) solution NMR spectrometers, both of them with automatic sample changers, multinuclear probes and variable temperature facilities, and mass spectrometry facilities that include a spectrometer for GC-MS analysis and a HPLC/MS equipment.
Moreover, there is a laboratory for special and dangerous reactions fully equipped with gases (CO2, CO, NH3, Cl2, O2, etc.), an ozone generator, and all the equipment required for carrying out special reactions, including an H-Cube system for performing flow-chemistry. We also have a high-pressure hydrogenation laboratory.
The pharmacological evaluation work is performed at the Unit of Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Therapeutics. The Faculty of Pharmacy include an Animal Experimentation Facility, where there are the animal welfare center, with behavioural and cognitive facilities. The laboratory of pharmacology has the essential equipment to perform cell cultures (CO2 incubators, laminar flux cabin), protein and gene determination (Electrophoresis and immunoblot devices, Chemiluminiscence reader, PCR, etc), plate spectrophotometer, plate luminometer, plate fluorimeter, fluorescence microscopy etc.
In addition to the equipment available in the Faculty facilities, we have access to the Scientific and Technological Centers (http://www.ccit.ub.edu/EN/home.html), a group of UB centers that support research with large equipment’s, including 500 MHz and 800 MHz NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, high resolution mass spectrometry or X-ray diffraction analysis, mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography several flow cytometers, wide-field transmitted light and fluorescence microscopes, stereo fluorescence microscope, confocal microscopes, and electronic microscope, among others.
Finally, access to the scientific information is guaranteed, as the Pharmacy Library and the Chemistry and Physics Library have an outstanding collection of books and periodicals, subscribing to over 1200 pharmaceutical, chemical and physical journals, most of them electronically available from the computers in our Laboratory. Also, databases such as SciFinder, ISI Web of Knowledge, Discovery Gate, Pubmed, Spacenet, etc. are available on-line for the UB users. Of note, we have in our laboratories our own up-to-date Library with numerous encyclopaedia and specialized books in all fields of organic chemistry, in particular organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, spectroscopy, pharmacology and biology.
Ongoing Projects
Multicomponent Reactions: Discovery, Development and Applications in Biomedicine (2019-2022). Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. PID2019-107991RB-I00. 95.000 €. PI: Carmen Escolano/Rodolfo Lavilla.
Unveiling soluble epoxide hydrolase as a new pharmacological target in Alzheimer’s disease (2016-2019). Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. SAF2016-77703-C2-2-R. 205.000 €. PI : Mercè Pallàs Lliberia.
Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases (2017-2020). Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR). 2017SGR.10620.000 €. PI: Diego Muñoz-Torrero.
Novel compounds for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders (2019-2020). Fundació La Caixa. CI18-00002. 70.000 €. PI: Carmen Escolano/Mercè Pallàs.
Channel block and gating of NMDA receptors (2019-2022). National Institutes of Health. 2R01GM128195-26A1. 64.626 €. PI: Santiago Vázquez/Jon W. Johnson.
Discovery of innovative drugs against respiratory viral infectious (2019-2022). La Marató de TV3. 201832-30. 199.175 €. PI: Santiago Vázquez.
New synthetic approaches to organic products of pharmaceutical interest. Industrial PhD 2018. Agaur. 33.960 €. PI: Santiago Vázquez.
Synthesis of compounds with innovative mechanisms against neurodegenerative diseases (2018-2020). Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. SAF2017-82771-R. 121.000 €. PI: Diego Muñoz-Torrero/Santiago Vázquez
News

Dr Mercè Pallas was interviewed in InquietMENTE
Dr Mercè Pallas was interviewed in InquietMENTE, a radio program on Health and Neuroscience in radio 5, about superneurons and…

The conversation
Dr. Griñan-Ferré and Dr. Pallas have published an opinion article in The Conversation, comment an article by Nassif C. Integrity…

Workshop targeting neuroinflammation for CNS treatment disorders
Dr Griñan participated in the WORKSHOP TARGETING NEUROINFLAMMATION FOR CNS TREATMENT DISORDERS held by Spanish Society of Pharmacology in Madrid…