Dr. Efres Belmonte-Reche joined Manuel Bañobre’s Group as a research fellow. His main objective is to synthesize, characterize and evaluate in in vitro and in vivo models the effect of externally triggered local treatments for cancer through a target-less drug carrier strategy.

Efres is a bachelor in pharmacy from the University of San Pablo-CEU and a PharmD from the University of Granada/CSIC. His doctoral thesis entitled “Glycosyl and alkyl modifications on potential therapeutic drugs targeting parasitic, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases” involved all aspects of the drug discovery process, including hit identification and hit to lead optimization. He designed, synthesized, purified, characterized and determined the biological potential (phenotypic and pharmacokinetic evaluation in in vivo and in vitro models) of various synthetic derivatives of natural phenols and G-Quadruplex binders as drug candidates.

To help his work, Efres also employed R statistical language to create several bioinformatic tools including a G-Quadruplex, i-Motif and higher-order quadruplex genomic search and analyser algorithm.

• E. Belmonte-Reche* and J.C. Morales
  G4-iM Grinder: DNA and RNA G-Quadruplex, i-Motif and higher order structure search and analyser tool
  submitted to Nucleic Acid Research, 2019. (* As corresponding author)

• E. Belmonte-Reche, M. Martínez-García, A. Guédin et al.
  G-quadruplex identification in the genome of protozoan parasites points to naphthalene diimide ligands as new antiparasitic agents
  Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2018, 61, 1231–1240.

• E. Belmonte-Reche*, P. Peñalver*, N. Adán et al.
  Alkylated resveratrol prodrugs and metabolites as potential therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases
  European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2018, 146, 123–138. (*contributed equally)

• M. Arévalo-Ruiz, F. Doria, E. Belmonte-Reche et al.
  Synthesis, Binding Properties, and Differences in Cell Uptake of G-Quadruplex Ligands Based on Carbohydrate Naphthalene Diimide Conjugates
  Chemistry – A European Journal 2017, 23, 2157–2164.

• E. Belmonte-Reche, M. Martinez-Garcia, P. Peñalver et al.
  Tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol derivatives as antitrypanosomal and antileishmanial agents
  European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2016, 119, 132–140.