The discovery of new innovative medicines is a priority for human health. It is in this context that the Medicinal Chemistry Research Group (CMFA) is pursuing its research activities
To reach this ambitious objective, two complementary strategies are used:
The first is driven by a pharmacological approach aiming at designing new bioactive molecules mainly interacting with a physiological system of neurotransmission: the endocannabinoid system. This system consists of several proteins regulating the signaling of endogenous lipid compounds, i.e. the endocannabinoids. Several targets emerge from this system: endocannabinoid biosynthesis enzymes, GPCR receptors, nuclear receptors and endocannabinoid degradation enzymes.
The second complementary approach is driven by a chemical approach of drug design and aims at discovering new chemical entities following a computationally-assisted strategy. This strategy involves the initial discovery of hits via virtual screening and fragment-based inspired methodology. These hits are then optimized by rational drug design to generate new pharmacological tools or drugs. Today our researches are mainly focused on the search of new anticancer agents, and particularly for the discovery of new agents for anticancer immunotherapy.