Xinyu Qian

CV

Xinyu Qian obtained her Master of Pharmaceutical Science at Uppsala University, majoring in Drug Discovery and Development in 2023. She conducted her master thesis in the Pharmacognosy group, focusing on the design of a screening method for inhibitors of Protein Arginine Deiminases and developing peptide-based auto-antibody scavengers for Rheumatoid Arthritis.

In 2024, she started her PhD in the NMRSTR group at Ghent University, under the supervision of Prof. José C. Martins, in a joint research project with the OBCR group led by Prof. Annemieke Madder. Her research mainly focuses on exploring the significance of the acyl chain in the bioactivity of Cyclic Lipodepsipeptides derived from Pseudomonas.

Research Project

Exploration of the importance of acyl chains for the bioactivity of Cyclic Lipodepsipeptides from Pseudomonas

The membranes of bacteria, fungi, and cancer cells serve as the primary targets for this class of CLiPs. Structure-activity relationship studies on CLiPs from the Viscosin and Orfamide groups have demonstrated that the acyl chain length in these lipopeptides plays a crucial role in determining their membrane-disrupting activity. Further understanding and improvement of CLiP bioactivity will be explored in this project using a combination of chemical synthesis and biophysical investigation, including NMR spectroscopy

Using NMR spectroscopy and isotope labelled CLiPs, we will investigate and model the location and orientation of their structures and assess the factors underlying the longer optimal chain length observed in orfamides compared to viscosins. This will also provide a working model for the viscosin and orfamide structure at the membrane:water interface, which will guide the incorporation of additional fatty acid-like chains using solid phase peptide synthesis. The synthesized CLips will be evaluated for the bioactivity and membrane permeability, with further exploration of their formulations.