Radu Bulai
Radu Bulai graduated as Master in Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Groningen in 2022, which followed a Bachelor degree in Chemistry in 2020. During the second year of his Master’s he joined the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Frank Dekker for his master thesis titled 'Degradation of D-Dopachrome Tautomerase
(D-DT) via Proteolysis-Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) As a Novel Therapeutic Strategy Against Cancer'. After he graduated in 2022 he joined the Medicinal Chemistry research unit at the Rega Institute in pursuit of his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences.
His current research consists of designing, synthesising and optimising inhibitors of the enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (ENR) isoform FabV. ENRs catalyse the last step in the fatty acid elongation cycle in bacteria and are crucial to their survival. Inhibitors that target the most common ENR, FabI, are largely ineffective against FabV, and it’s believed that its expression confers drug resistance to some high-interest Gram-negative bacteria such as P. aeruginosa and Y. pestis.
Co-supervisor: Prof. Joleen Masschelein (KUL)
CV
Research Interests
1. Exploring the Structure-Activity-Relationship of the ‘B’-ring in Diaryl Ether-Based paFabV Inhibitors
Radu-George Bulai, Sofie Heylen, Maria Cremonini, Eveline Lescrinier, Jef Rozenski, Joleen Masschelein,* Peter Verwilst,* ChemRxiv 2023. Read here