Marc Nazaré

Marc Nazare studied chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe and obtained his PhD in organic chemistry with Herbert Waldmann in the field of natural product total synthesis in 1999. He then joined pharmaceutical industry at Sanofi in Frankfurt as a medicinal chemist. In 2013, Dr. Nazaré started a medicinal chemistry group at the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology FMP. His current research interests are focused on the design and optimization of chemical probes and imaging tools for chemical biology and translational applications. He is a honorary professor at the University Bielefeld.

Yelena obtained her Ph.D. degree (direct track) in Medicinal Chemistry from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2018, under the supervision of Prof. Dmitry Tsvelikhovsky. Her doctoral research focused on methodology development for the synthesis of biologically important aliphatic heterocycles and discovery of the new chemical transformations. Following this, she joined the group of Prof. Dr. M. Nazaré as a post-doc. Her research focused on the inhibitors of SHP2 phosphatase (the project was awarded the Minerva Fellowship of the Max-Planck Society) and the development of fluorescent chemical probes for the illumination of cannabinoid receptors. After completing her postdoctoral training, Yelena transitioned to roles in the Israeli biotech industry, serving as a Project and CMC Leader at Galmed Pharmaceuticals (2020-2021) and later as a Senior Medicinal Chemist at FutuRx (2021-2024). In these capacities, she led medicinal and computational chemistry campaigns, as well as overseeing non-clinical ADME and PK/PD activities. In 2024 she re-joined the Nazaré group.

Davide got his MSc degree in pharmaceutical chemistry and technology at the university of Milan where he also received his pharmacy certificate. He did his master thesis project in a collaboration between the De Amici`s group at the University of Milan and the Holzgrabe’s group at the university of Würzburg focusing on the development of hybrid ligands for the M1 muscarinic receptor. His PhD at the University of Bergen in the Bjørsvik`s group was funded by the European Commision under the H2020 – MSCA – ITN – 2015 programme (PET3D). As a part of this project, he had also the chance of an industrial secondment at AstraZeneca. During these three years, he mainly focused on the development of XCT inhbitors for cancer treatment and on method development for the functionalisation of imidazoles. In 2020, he joined Dr. Marc Nazaré’s group at the FMP and he is working mainly on the development of selective inhibitors for understudied kinases of biomedicial interest.

Wen-Di studied applied chemistry at Sun Yat-sen University where he obtained a B.Sc degree in 2017 and focused on developing hypoglycemic agents in his thesis. He pursued his M.Sc degree between 2017 and 2020 at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His master thesis focused on developing ion channel inhibitors and synthetic methodology towards natural product analogs. He joined Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS) afterwards as a research assistant working on developing antiviral agents as well as derivatization-based mass-spectrometry analytical methods. He joined our group in 2024 to develop smart diagnostic agents. Besides, he is also an amateur photographer.

Annaleah studied chemistry at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg, where she completed her bachelor thesis in the group of Prof. Dr Ingo Krossing. For her Master's she moved to Freie Universität Berlin, where she received her Master's degree in Chemistry in 2022 (Master's thesis under Prof. Dr Martin Oestreich) after external research stays at Uppsala University and FMP Berlin. After a three-month industrial internship at Bayer AG, where she was able to further deepen her knowledge in medicinal chemistry - especially regarding PROTACs - she joined our research group in June 2023. Her research focus is on the design and synthesis of smart turn-on fluorescent probes, with the aim to contribute to progress in healthcare through novel diagnostics.

Michael studied chemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he received his master's degree in 2022 after research stays at the FMP Berlin, the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the ETH Zurich. For his master's thesis, as part of the research group of Prof. Dr Beate Koksch, he worked on the stereoselective synthesis of fluorinated amino acids. After a three-month industrial internship at Bayer AG, where he could further deepen his knowledge in the research fields of radiopharmaceuticals and medicinal chemistry, he joined our working group in June 2023. Here, he is working on targeted-activatable luminescence probes for the detection of bacterial infections. Outside of the lab, Michael enjoys sports and is always up for an Apéro.

Ziqiong studied Pharmaceutical Engineering at Yunnan University where she got her Bachelor’s. She finished her master thesis in Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences where she mainly focused on the design of novel neuroactive steroids. Then she worked as a research assistant in SIMM and did research about transition metal catalysis. She joined the Medicinal Chemistry group at FMP in 2022 as a PhD student to investigate novel inhibitors.

Marta studied pharmaceutical chemistry and technology at the university of Milano where she also received her pharmacy certificate. She did her master thesis at the group of Ulrike Holzgrabe at the university of Würzburg where she focused on the design of muscarinic allosteric modulators. She joined the medicinal chemistry group at the FMP in the beginning of 2022 as a PhD student to investigate novel inhibitor scaffolds.

Nina-Louisa Efrém holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Freie Universität Berlin. She obtained her Master’s degree in Drug Design and Synthesis from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. After her studies, she participated in the Roche internship in Medicinal Chemistry (RiCH) program in Basel, Switzerland. Nina-Louisa joined the Medicinal Chemistry research group at the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology as a PhD student in October 2021. Her projects focus on the development of tool compounds for SHP2 and for C-type lectin receptors. She is an Early-Stage Researcher within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie innovative training network ALLOstery in Drug Discovery (ALLODD).

Machoud got his bachelors degree in pharmaceutical sciences at Paris Descartes university between 2014 and 2017. After graduating as a pharmacist, he pursued with a masters degree in molecular chemistry at Sorbonne university in 2020. He did his Master thesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Craig Crews at Yale university followed by a one year industrial placement in the medicinal chemistry department at Roche in Basel before joining our group in 2021.

Axel studied biomedicinal Chemistry at the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz where he obtained his masters degree in 2020. He joined the Nazaré lab in the same year as a doctoral student. He is interested in drug design and synthesis and currently working on chemical probes and tool compounds for biomedicinal research.

Leonard works as PhD student in the research group of Dr. Marc Nazaré at the FMP Berlin since 2019. His research area focuses on the development of fluorescent probes in an interdisciplinary environment with collaboration partners from chemistry, biology and industry. Before pursuing a PhD, he studied „Molecular Life Science“ at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg where he completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis in the field of cancer-cell specific prodrugs and reactive oxygen species in the group of Prof. Andriy Mokhir. In his free time he is interested in everything around bicycles.