Laboratory of Structural Biology
Head: Cyril Bařinka
Prague node
HOME INSTITUTION
Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences
RESEARCH PROGRAMME(S)
RP 2 - Research and development of anticancer pharmaceuticals and therapeutic methods
Know your enemy to fight it effectively!
- Mission: Conduct basic research on the molecular mechanisms underlying pathophysiological processes to facilitate the development of new therapies.
- Vision: To make major contributions to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis.
Prostate cancer (PCa) remains the second most malignant cancer in men, despite significant advances in diagnostics and therapy. Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a transmembrane metalloprotease that is used in clinical practice for diagnostic imaging and treatment of metastatic PCa. Increased expression of PSMA is also detected in neovasculature of non-prostatic solid tumors, and the development of ligands specifically targeting PSMA thus represents an attractive direction of research in the field of solid tumor therapy and diagnostics.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Zhang J, Rakhimbekova A, Duan X, Yin Q, Foss CA, Fan Y, Xu Y, Li X, Cai X, Kutil Z, Wang P, Yang Z, Zhang N, Pomper MG, Wang Y*, Bařinka C*, Yang X*: A PSMA-activated molecular rotor for real-time fluorescence imaging. Nat Commun. 2021;12(1):5460. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25746-6
- Ptacek J, Zhang D, Liu Q, Kruspe S, Motlova L, Kolenko P, Novakova Z, Shubham S, Havlinova B, Baranova P, Chen SJ, Zou X, Giangrande P, Barinka C: Structural Basis of Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen Recognition by the A9g RNA Aptamer. Nucl Acid Res. 2020;48(19):11130-11145. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa494
- Noonepalle S, Shen S, Ptacek J, Tavares MT, Zhang G, Stransky J, Pavlicek J, Ferreira GM, Hadley M, Pelaez G, Bařinka C, Kozikowski A, Villagra A: Rational Design of Suprastat, a Novel Selective Histone Deacetylase 6 Inhibitor with the Ability to Potentiate Immunotherapy in Melanoma Models. J Med Chem. 2020;63(18):10246-10262. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.0c00567
- Kopka K, Benešová M, Barinka C, Haberkorn U, Babich J: Glu-Ureido–Based Inhibitors of Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen: Lessons Learned During the Development of a Novel Class of Low-Molecular-Weight Theranostic Radiotracers. J Nucl Med. 2017;58:17S-26. DOI: 10.2967/jnumed.116.186775
SPECIALIZED EXPERTISE AND TECHNOLOGY
Production of recombinant proteins and their structural and functional characterization
Protein engineering, antibody development
Development of activity and diagnostic assays
COLLABORATION WITH LARGE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES AND RESEARCH CENTRES
Biotechnology and Biomedicine Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Charles University BIOCEV
Czech Infrastructure for Integrative Structural Biology CIISB
National Infrastructure for Chemical Biology CZ-OPENSCREEN