Joy Petrick

Nationality

Germany

Institution:

Novartis Pharma AG

Supervision:

Dr. Wolfgang Jahnke (NOVA), Prof. Gerd Klebe (PUM)

Research Topic:

Discovery of novel chemotypes for the treatment of trypanosomatid and apicomplexan protozoal infections.

About the project:

The aim of my PhD project is to identify inhibitors of a novel chemotype for the treatment of Chagas disease (CD) which is caused by the parasite T. cruzi. Bisphosphonates (Bps) can combat the flagellate but are non-effective on CD. The molecular target of BPs is farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPPS), an enzyme in lipid biosynthesis and therefore critical for the survival of the flagellate. Seven years ago an allosteric non-bisphosphonate inhibitor was found by FBDD for human FPPS by Jahnke et al. The existence of a similar so-called allosteric pocket in T. cruzi FPPS became the trigger for a FBDD effort which is object of my work. This includes protein expression and purification, fragment screening and validation by NMR, as well as characterizing by other biophysical methods. Hits are analyzed by crystallography to obtain a protein-ligand structure. This will be the starting point for a medicinal chemistry campaign with the goal to turn a primary fragment hit into a tool compound. 

 

Personal information:

Born in Hamburg and studied near the Baltic see, I graduated with a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Rostock, Germany. For my PhD project in drug discovery I moved from the north of Germany to the very south to work at Novartis in Basel, Switzerland. Now I am located at the region where three countries meet in the heart of Europe, where I fell in love with the mountains and the good weather! Now not only cycling, but also hiking is one of my favorite free time activities.

 

Secondments:

Phillips-University Marburg (3month), University Groningen (one month)

 

List of publications:

 

List of posters:

Novel active site and allosteric site binders identified for farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase of Trypanosoma cruzi. Petrick J, Muenzker L, Schleberger C, Nelson E, Clavel D, Cornaciu I, Marquez JA von Delft F, Klebe G, Marzinzik A, Jahnke W; New Frontiers in Structure-Based Drug Discovery, Sept. 23-25, 2019, Florence, Italy

The Power of Fragments: FBLD approach to investigate proteins structure. Magari F, Petrick J, Metz A, Wollenhaupt J, Huschmann F, Bertoletti N, Hassaan E, Glöckner S, Siefker C, Abazi N, Heine A, Weiss M, Jahnke W, Klebe G; New Frontiers in Structure-Based Drug Discovery, Sept. 23-25, 2019, Florence, Italy

Fragment-based drug discovery targeting Trypanosoma brucei FPPS: Discovery of new binding sites. Müenzker L, Petrick J, Schleberger C, Cornaciu I, Márquez JA, Klebe G, Marzinzik A, Jahnke W; New Frontiers in Structure-Based Drug Discovery, Sept. 23-25, 2019, Florence, Italy

 

Fragment-based discovery of novel active and allosteric site binders of T. brucei farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase. Muenzker L, Petrick J, Klebe G, Marzinzik K, Jahnke W; 7th RSC-BMCS Fragment-based Drug Discovery meeting, 24th – 26th March 2019, Cambridge, United Kingdom

 

Fragment-based discovery of novel active and allosteric site binders of T. brucei farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase. Muenzker L, Petrick J, Klebe G, Marzinzik K, Jahnke W; 3rd Integrative Structural Biology School, Institut Pasteur, July 16 - 21, 2018, Paris, France

 

Targeting Trypanosoma brucei FPPS by fragment-based drug discovery. Muenzker L, Petrick J, Klebe G, Marzinzik K, Jahnke W; 9th International Conference on Structural Biology, Sep 8 - 20, 2017, Zurich, Switzerland

 

 

Targeting FPPS of Trypanosoma cruzi by fragment-based drug discovery.Petrick J, Muenzker L, Klebe G, Marzinzik A, Jahnke W; Revolutions in Structural Biology: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Sir John Kendrew, EMBL Heidelberg, Nov 16/17 2017

 

List of presentations:

„Targeting FPPS of Trypanosoma cruzi by fragment-based drug discovery”, Revolutions in Structural Biology: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Sir John Kendrew, EMBL Heidelberg, 16 – 17 Nov 2017

“Novel active and allosteric site binders identified for FPPS of T. cruzi”, 5th Novalix conference: Biophysics in Drug discovery 2018, Boston, 13 - 15 June 2018

 

 

PhD Thesis:

Targeting farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase of Trypanosoma cruzi by fragment-based lead discovery. (on hold)

Novartis Pharma AG & Phillips-Universität Marburg, 21 Sep 2019, Basel, Switzerland & Marburg, Germany