Molecular Biology in Medicinal Chemistry

Theodor Dingermann, born 1948, studied pharmacy at the University of Erlangen, Germany. After obtaining his PhD in biochemistry, he worked as a post-doc at Yale University, New Haven. In 1987 he completed his habilitation for the disciplines of biochemistry and molecular biology. Since 1990 he is full professor of pharmaceutical biology at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. He is editor-in-chief of two journals, "Die Pharmazie" and "Pharmazie in unserer Zeit". Furthermore, he is chairman of the working group on biopharmaceuticals and vice-chairman of the committee on pharmaceutical biology of the German Arzneibuch commission. From 2000 to 2004 he has been President of the German Pharmaceutical Society.

Dieter Steinhilber, born 1959, studied pharmacy at the University of Tubingen (Germany). After an assistantship there he spent a postdoc period with Nobel prize winner Bengt Samuelsson in Stockholm (Sweden). In 1994 he received an associate professorship and since 2000 he is a full professor for pharmaceutical chemistry at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany). He is also the chairman of the scientific advisory board of Phenion, a company for molecular cell physiology.

Gerd Folkers is professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the ETH Zurich since 1991. He studied pharmacy at the University of Bonn and earned his Ph.D. on structure-activity relationships of desapurines. He then moved to the University of Tubingen, where he completed his habilitation in pharmaceutical chemistry. During a stay with H.-D. Hoeltje in Bern, he studied new research methods in computer-aided molecular design and expanded this knowledge during other stays with T. Blundell at the Birkbeck College and E. Meyer at Texas A&M University.
The focus of his research is the molecular interaction between drugs and their binding sites. Besides his work on the molecular mechanism of "conventional" nucleoside therapeutics against virus infections and cancer, his special interest has shifted to immuno-therapeutics.