prof. RNDr. Milan Pour, Ph.D.

Address: Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Pharmacy Hradec Kralove, Heyrovskeho 1203, CZ-50005 Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

Head of Synthetic Organic Chemistry and NMR Spectroscopy science workgroup.

E-mail: pour@faf.cuni.cz

Short CV

  • 1984-1989 MSc. in Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 1991-1994 Ph.D. in Chemistry (under supervision of L. N. Mander), Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
  • 1994-1996 postdoc with E-i. Negishi, Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
  • 1996-to date Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
  • since 1999 Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry
  • since 2007 Professor of Organic Chemistry

Research interests

Biologically active natural products have often served as useful prototypes of pharmaceutical agents. However, a number of prospective drugs from the family of natural products are organic compounds of high complexity, accessible exclusively by way of multistep total synthesis. Since all potential drugs must be made in a practical fashion, this is a serious limitation in the development of new drugs based on natural product leads.

On the other hand, the action of a compound on a subcellular level does not necessarily require the presence of all structural features built in its molecule. In a number of cases, the desired biological effect is caused by the combination of several substructural elements, usually termed as pharmacophore, such as polar groups in certain spatial arrangement, capable of interaction with biomacromolecules in the target organism. Hence, the preparation of purposefully designed, easy-to-make synthetic analogues that simplify the structure of a biologically active natural product is a distinct possibility, especially when biological investigation is likely to be hampered by the necessity to supply the material by an elaborate synthesis.
We are particularly interested in the natural products from the family of butenolides (incrustoporine, CR 377, uncinine and many others) and pentenolides (eg. podolactones) that display antifungal activity and cytotoxicity.

Our projects are generally focused on (1) total syntheses of selected natural products and/or their analogs in an efficient and chemically interesting fashion, using modern synthetic methods employing transition metal catalysis, (2) extensive screening of the compounds for biological activity (cytostatic, antifungal, antimicrobial, cytotoxic) and (3) using the SARs thus obtained in ensuing medicinal chemistry studies.

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