Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens

2 mass spectrometers coupled to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-MS)

Equipment

• SCIEX API 4000
• SCIEX QTrap 5500+

Characteristics

• API 4000 QTRAP LC-MS / MS system fitted with a TurboIonSpray source and a hybrid triple quadrupole / linear ion trap mass spectrometer (Sciex) •
• API 5500+ QTRAP LC-MS / MS system fitted with a hybrid triple quadrupole / linear ion trap mass spectrometer (Sciex)

Applications

• Analyzes of bioequivalence samples.
• Pharmacokinetics (PK) of drugs in pre-clinical stage and clinical stage.
• Drug metabolism (in vivo and in vitro).
• Quantification of biomarkers (eg peptides, polypeptides, hormones, lipid mediators) in various biological fluids and tissues.
• Preclinical toxicity studies.

Equipment

• Agilent 1100 series

Applications

• Quantification of drug molecules in biological fluids
• Analysis of pharmaceutical preparations

• Laminar flow cabinets for sample management, organic solvents and cell cultures •
• Freezers (-80oC), refrigerators •
• pH meter •
• omputation techniquesound moleculesed for digitial weight scale
• Centrifuges and exhaust devices •
• In vitro techniques (eg microsomes) for the study of drug molecule stability and metabolite identification

The Pharmacology laboratory is fully equiped for cell cultures for

• Cancer cell cultures
• Cytotoxicity studies of compound molecules

Drug Design and Molecular Modeling lab (Cournia lab) uses computational techniques to design new drug candidates. Specifically, techniques for computationally predicting the structure of a ligand-protein complex, for predicting the free binding energy of a drug candidate to a protein, de novo designing new drug candidates, exploring the dynamics of proteins that are pharmacological targets, properties of chemical molecules, and the construction of chemotherapeutic agents.

Applications:

• Prediction of chemical properties / toxicity / metabolism of synthetic chemical molecules in chemotherapies.
• Molecular modeling of therapeutic targets-proteins.
• Computational prediction of the structure of the chemical molecule-therapeutic target (protein) complex.
• Virtual evaluation of chemotherapies for therapeutic targets-proteins (structure-based drug design).
• Manufacture of pharmacological models based on known active molecules.
• Virtual evaluation of chemotherapies based on the structure of known active molecules (ligand-based drug design).
• Design of small de novo molecules for targeted therapy. •
• Optimization of the chemical molecule structure for better attachment to the therapeutic target.
• Design of functional nanoparticles as transporters of small molecules-drugs for targeted therapy.
• Workshops for molecular modeling and design of chemotherapies

The Beis laboratory uses the zebrafish (Danio rerio), a small tropical fish, as an animal model to create experimental models of human disease. The zebrafish provides a wealth of benefits for Biomedical Research and in particular the ability to study signaling pathways at the organism level in vivo.