Serafini Lab
Imaging and Targeting Hypoxia
Hypoxia is a key feature of solid tumours, contributing to resistance to therapy and aggressiveness. The lab is developing imaging tools to detect low levels of oxygen in complex systems (spheroids and patient-derived organoids). Additionally, we are investigating chemical reactions that can only occur in hypoxia to promote the in situ self-assembling of active drugs or to release chemotherapeutic agents.
Degrading Transcription Factors in Cancer
Transcription Factors are often dysregulated in cancer and their direct targeting would provide an important therapeutic benefit in multiple cancers. However, the lack of ligandable binding pockets has historically hampered the development of effective drugs.
To render them druggable, we have developed a click-chemistry based platform that can be applied to target a variety of transcription factors. This technique is based on the recently described oligo-PROTACs.
Medchem campaigns
The group has a number of active collaborations to (i) discover new hit compounds for orphan targets; and (ii) optimize already known lead compounds. We use fast and versatile synthesis (multicomponent reactions, in situ and standard click chemistry) to rapidly explore the chemical space or innovative tools to improve the drug-likeness.
