Chemistry of nucleosides and heterocycles – Infectious disease research

Chemistry of nucleosides and heterocycles – Infectious disease research

Team of Professor Luigi A AGROFOGLIO (PREX), Dr Patrick FAVETTA (MCU) et Dr Vincent ROY (MCU-HDR)

General presentation

Created in 1995 from scratch, our team currently consists of Prof. Luigi Agrofoglio, Dr. Vincent Roy, Associate Professor and Dr. Patrick Favetta, Assistant Professor. Team Research activities are positioned primarily in the field of infectious diseases by developing a deliberately interdisciplinary research based on strong expertise in organic and analytical chemistry, our areas of expertise. More recently, Dr. Si-Si-Ahmed Nafa, hepatologist, hospital of Orléans has joined our team as an associate researcher (10% of the time) to develop a translational health research especially for liver pathologies. This is a direct bridge between discovery research and clinical research, which aims to spread to basic research of new observations on the nature and progression of various diseases while stimulating new therapeutic and methodological innovations. The team is a member of LabEx SYNORG and the Federation of Research in Infectious Diseases of the Central Region.

Our main research activities are to develop original methods of organic synthesis, historically in the field of nucleosides and more recently in that of heterocyclic compounds, to design new polymeric carriers or cargo and to develop methods for trace analysis of metabolites of interest for therapeutic monitoring. We also have a growing interest towards transducing signals that play a key role in the immune response and provide a therapeutic target in infectious diseases. As part of a network of national and international collaborations (chemistry, cell biology, virology, crystallography, … ), priority is given to major pathogens to human health (bacteria, viruses and parasites).

Thus the main research areas are: 

• Organic and medicinal chemistry
• Chemistry of nucleosides and heterocycles
• Prodrugs
• New polymeric devices for Drug Delivery System
• Diagnostic tools