Search Results

December 2021 "Dame Carol Robinson DBE, FRS, FRSC, FMedSci, Oxford University’s first female Professor

December 2021 OMass Therapeutics's founder, Carol Robinson, has been awarded the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry from The Franklin Institute "Huge congratulations to our founder, Carol Robinson, who has been awarded the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine 2022 by the Louis-Jeantet

Industry News Professor Dame Carol Robinson Received 2023 ASMS John.B.Fenn Award Exscientia Announces Exscientia to Present Data Highlighting Pipeline and Precision Medicine Platform at AACR Fast Company has named

February 2022 "Switzerland Today, InterAx Biotech is pleased to announce that Carola Weiss has joined Carola Weiss is a Senior Executive with more than 20 years of international experience in the biopharmaceutical Carola Weiss’ professional career brings deep expertise in business development, marketing & sales, licensing

Watch Episode 171 What happens when your protein has no known ligands, no structure, and very little data? For most researchers, that’s a dead end. For Alessandro Nicoli, it’s an opportunity. In this post, we explore how computational tools—especially AlphaFold —are helping crack the mystery of olfactory GPCRs , one of the most elusive receptor families in the human body. The Problem: Hundreds of Receptors, Almost No Ligands Alessandro’s work focuses on olfactory GPCRs—nearly 400 distinct receptors that play key roles in smell but remain largely uncharacterized . Most have only one known ligand, if any. Their structures are hard to determine experimentally due to poor expression and the volatility of odorant molecules. That’s where computational chemistry steps in. Enter AlphaFold: Predicting the “Face” of a Receptor When Alessandro began his PhD, structural models of olfactory GPCRs were essentially nonexistent. The main challenge was simple but daunting: “The challenge was to get a face to those proteins—the structure. AlphaFold has, of course, as we know, revolutionized the world.”  —Alessandro Nicoli For the first time, researchers had a reliable set of predicted structures to work from. That meant simulations, ligand screening, and experimental design could move forward with confidence. “When they released the first structure of the odorant receptors… AlphaFold already had it, without any prior information, and the match was very close to experimental error.”  —Alessandro Nicoli A New Era of GPCR Research AlphaFold didn’t just fill a gap—it shifted the focus of computational biology. Instead of struggling to predict structures from scratch, Alessandro and others could now use AI-generated models as starting points  for deeper questions. “…now you have a plethora of 400 models that you can start with molecular dynamics, docking, virtual screening.”  —Alessandro Nicoli The result? More accurate hypotheses, faster ligand discovery, and new strategies to tackle one of biology’s most complex receptor families. From Prediction to Discovery One of Alessandro’s projects focused on receptor R5VK1 , where his team tested computational models against a set of experimentally validated active and inactive ligands. By iteratively refining the models with docking and mutagenesis data, they developed predictive pipelines that can help identify new odorant ligands . This case study highlights why computational chemistry is no longer a side tool—it’s a driver of discovery , especially when experimental data is scarce. Want to level up your modeling skills? Start with our GPCR training program and get hands-on with virtual tools shaping the future of drug discovery. ________ Keyword Cloud: # AlphaFold #GPCRdata #DrugDiscovery #OlfactoryReceptors #StructuralBiology #ArtificialIntelligence #MolecularDynamics #ComputationalBiology #MolecularModeling

☕ We are excited to announce our rescheduled Dr. GPCR Virtual Cafe session with Dr. Matthew E. on Friday, October 7th at 1 PM ET. Don't miss the chance to listen to his latest research on the field. It's a great opportunity to get warmed up for the upcoming Summit starting the next Monday. Get your ticket today on Eventbrite! ➡https://bit.ly/3CmntVn

Biology, Vlaams Instituut Biotechnologie, at the Vrije Universiteit Brusle, Brussels, Belgium, has been named

September 2022 "Morphine, the most widely used analgesic, relieves severe pain by activating the μ-opioid receptor (MOR), whereas naloxone, with only slight structural changes compared to morphine, exhibits inhibitory effect, and is used to treat opioid abuse. The mechanism by which the MOR distinguishes between the two is unclear. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on a 1-μs time scale and metadynamics-enhanced conformational sampling are used here to determine the different interactions of these two ligands with MOR: morphine adjusted its pose by continuously flipping deeper into the pocket, whereas naloxone failed to penetrate deeper because its allyl group conflicts with several residues of MOR. The endogenous peptide ligand endomorphin-1 (EM-1) underwent almost no significant conformational changes during the MD simulations. To validate these processes, we employed GIRK4S143T, a MOR-activated Gβγ-protein effector, in combination with mutagenesis and electrophysiological recordings. We verified the role of some key residues in the dynamic recognition of naloxone and morphine and identified the key residue I322, which leads to differential recognition of morphine and naloxone while assisting EM-1 in activating MOR. Reducing the side chain size of I322 (MORI322A) transformed naloxone from an inhibitor directly into an agonist of MOR, and I322A also significantly attenuated the potency of MOR on EM-1, confirming that binding deep in the pocket is critical for the agonistic effect of MOR. This finding reveals a dynamic mechanism for the response of MOR to different ligands and provides a basis for the discovery of new ligands for MOR at the atomic level." Read more at the source #DrGPCR #GPCR #IndustryNews

March 2022 Crinetics Pharmaceuticals Expands Executive Team With Appointment Of James Hassard As Chief therapeutics for rare endocrine diseases and endocrine-related tumors, today announced the appointment of James

We've refreshed the schedule and can’t wait for you to join us on these new dates. New Course Dates: Principles of Pharmacology I :  October 3, 10, 17, 24 (four sessions) Principles GPCR Event Spotlight    11th Adhesion GPCR Workshop    Location:  Mexico City Dates:  October 23-25,

pharmacology' Yao Lu and colleagues work on 'Molecular insights into orphan GPCRs relevant to schizophrenia' Carole Save the dates: September 7 - 8: Join the 3rd ECI GPCR Symposium, an event by and for early career investigators

.; Robinson, L.; Ashley, G. W.; Santi, D. V. Long-Term Stabilization of Maleimide–Thiol Conjugates.

This Week’s Highlights: Celebrating Excellence:   Patrick Sexton  and Arthur Christopoulos  Named Among research Trinh Trung Duong Nguyen ,  Ziaurrehman Tanoli ,  Saad Hassan , Umut Onur Özcan ,   Jimmy Caroli and models of physiological ligand complexes Luis P Taracena Herrera , Søren N Andreassen ,   Jimmy Caroli GPCR Events You can begin organizing and marking a few dates in 2025 .

August 2022 "THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. and SAN CARLOS, Calif., Aug. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Amgen (NASDAQ

ChemoCentryx Announces EU Approval of TAVNEOS® (avacopan) for the Treatment of ANCA-Associated Vasculitis "SAN CARLOS

Save the dates: November 17: Join our final Dr. Kathleen Caron. Check out the weekly Classified GPCR News from October 23rd to 29th, 2023.

Adopted by European Medicines Agency (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) "SAN CARLOS

Save the date: TOMORROW - November 17: Don't miss out on our final Dr. Kathleen Caron, as our video guest, subscribe now!

GPCRs, Ion Channels, and Transport Proteins (March 24 - 29, 2024) GPCR Jobs NEW Postdoctoral Fellow, Caron

lab team developed fluorescent analogues for real-time binding studies of orphan GPCR GPR3: Save the dates Kathleen Caron. Check out the weekly Classified GPCR News from October 30 to November 4, 2023. GLP-1 Receptor Agonist PF-06954522 into a Phase 1 Trial Andrew Hopkins Inducted into RSC BMCS Hall of Fame

Senior Scientist- Membrane Technologies NEW Computational Protein Design (GPCR) Postdoctoral Fellow, Caron

Surgery Senior Scientist- Membrane Technologies Computational Protein Design (GPCR) Postdoctoral Fellow, Caron

S., Caron, M. G., Lefkowitz, R. J., & Strader, C. D. (1986).

Kathleen M Caron and her team studied the GPER/GPR30 complex with β1-adrenergic receptor and AKAP5 in

Slosky LM, Caron MG, Barak LS. Biased Allosteric Modulators: New Frontiers in GPCR Drug Discovery. Dave K, Gelman H, Thu CT, Guin D, Gruebele M. Carroll S. Why even physicists still don't understand quantum theory 100 years on.

to the Principles of Pharmacology I & II courses, and we can’t wait for you to join us on these new dates Dates:  October 3 to 24, 2024 (four sessions) Topics:  Measuring pharmacologic activity, mechanisms of Dates:  October 31, November 7 - 14 -21, and December 5, 2024 (five sessions) Topics:  New cellular assays GPCR Event Spotlight    11th Adhesion GPCR Workshop    Location:  Mexico City Dates:  October 23-25,

Get ready to save the dates! Dr. Dates:  September 5 to 26, 2024 What You’ll Learn during the four sessions: How to measure pharmacologic Dates:  October 3 to 31, 2024 What You’ll Master during the five sessions: Utilizing new cellular assays innovative drug profiles GPCR Event Highlight  11th Adhesion GPCR Workshop    Location : Mexico City Dates

August 2022 "GPCRs in Medicinal Chemistry Event 8th RSC / SCI symposium on GPCRs in Medicinal Chemistry Dates October 2022 Place Evotec Campus Levi-Montalcini, Verona, Italy Downloads and Links Registration closing dates

For Hodson, that moment came early. For Hodson, that moment came with a protein he’d been tracking for a decade: vitamin D binding protein The turning point came when the cryo-EM data arrived — a structure solved through the same collaborative

Eric Trinquet and his team at Revvity, that moment came when they watched GPCRs internalize in native Instead, the signal came clean, scalable, and unmistakably real. It wasn’t luck. That’s where collaboration came in. Access this week’s full Premium Edition here ➤ What our members say "This came at just the most perfect