Rasmus Jahnsen

Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Universitetsparken 2
2100 Copenhagen
Denmark

Phone: (+45) 353 36414
Fax: (+45) 35 33 60 41
E-mail: rj(at)farma.ku.dk
Building 30, Room 125

September 2010 – present
Ph.D.-student
Natural Products Research group
Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Copenhagen

September 2005 – August 2010
M.Sc. in Pharmacy
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Copenhagen

November 2009 – June 2010
Student worker
Danish Medicines Agency
Ministry of Interior and Health

Winner of PHARMA STUDENT AWARD 2010

At present I am teaching class-room lessons in Organic Chemistry II (M32-1) and Bioorganic Chemistry (M23-2) as well as lab courses in Bioorganic Chemistry (M23-2). I also function as a co-supervisor for Master students.

Main advisor
Henrik Franzyk, Associaste Professor, Department of medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Copenhagen

Co-advisor
Niels Frimodt-Møller, Antibiotic Research at Statens Serum Institute

Novel antibiotic peptidomimetics

This project is financed by the Danish Center for Antibiotic Research and Development (DanCARD), which is an interdisciplinary collaboration between 11 research groups from universities and pharmaceutical companies in Denmark. The common focus is to elevate the severe and still increasing microbial threat that society faces these years.

Occurrence of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is increasing in most parts of the world. Furthermore, it is recognized that the resistance development is associated with higher infection mortality and increased costs during hospital admissions. Despite this, it seems that still fewer pharmaceutical companies devote effort into the R&D of new antibiotics and instead focus on more profitable therapeutic areas. It seems that the healthcare is at stake and apparently continues to be so. It is clear that there is a growing need for novel antibiotics with a new mechanism of action.

In most organisms natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute an important part of the front line defense against a wide range of pathogens. In recent years, analogues of these AMPs have won great interest as part of the continuous battle against infections with multidrug resistant bacteria. Homomeric β³-peptides, α-peptoid oligomers and β-peptoid oligomers are able to mimic the antimicrobial activity of natural AMPs in addition to being stable towards enzymatic degradation. Recently it has been reported that α-amino acid/peptoid oligomer chimeras also exhibit promising antimicrobial properties.

In the present project the focus is on design and synthesis of antimicrobial lead compounds with chimeric backbones consisting of peptoid residues and amino acids with side chains inspired by the structure of the naturally occurring AMPs. In order to assess the therapeutic potential, mechanistic studies and investigations of toxicity as well as the stability are included in the project.