
Lubomir Vezenkov
ASSOCIATE Professor, National Graduate School of Chemistry of Montpellier
Lubomir Vezenkov was born in Bulgaria, where he performed his studies until he arrived in Montpellier in 2005 for his masters in the ENSCM engineering school.
Then, he performed a co-tutoring PhD between the universities of Montpellier and Naples, which he graduated from in 2011. During this period, he helped develop some potent cell penetrating foldamers that were used to vectorize pepststin and provide selective anti-cancer activity.
Afterwards, he did a two-years-long post-doctoral internship in the prof. Robert Young group in Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, where he took part in the development of one the first specific autophagy inhibitors.
Then, he moved back to Montpellier, and in 2016, he received an associate professor position at ENSCM in team 9 of the IBMM research institute.
Currently, he is working in the fields of peptide and medicinal chemistry as well as in the exciting domain of chemical biology. More precisely his team is working on creating chemical tools that can block or activate certain microtubulin post-translational modifications. Such compounds can help better understand the polarization of neurons and can be used as therapeutics for neurodegenerative disease.
lubomir.vezenkov@enscm.fr
+33 411 75 96 27
5 major publications :
1) D. Bosc, L. Vezenkov, S. Bortnik, J. An, J. Xu, C. Choutka, A.M. Hannigan, S. Kovacic, S. Loo, P.G.K. Clark, G. Chen, R.N. Guay-Ross, K. Yang, W.H. Dragowska, F. Zhang, N.E. Go, A. Leung, N.S. Honson, T.A. Pfeifer, M. Gleave, M. Bally, S.J. Jones, S.M. Gorski, R.N. Young. A new quinoline-based chemical probe inhibits the autophagy-related cysteine protease ATG4B; Sci Rep. 2018 Aug 3;8(1):11653. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29900-x
2) V. Martin, B. Legrand, L. Vezenkov, G. Subra, M. Calmès, J. Bantignies, J. Martinez, M. Amblard; Turning Peptide Sequences into Ribbon Foldamers by a Straightforward Multicyclization Reaction. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015 Nov 16;54(47):13966-70. doi: 10.1002/anie.201506955.
3) L. Vezenkov, M. Maynadier, M. Amblard, V. Martin, C. Gandreuil, O. Vaillant, M. Gary-Bobo, I. Basile, J.F. Hernandez, M. Garcia, J. Martinez; Dipeptide mimic oligomer transporter mediates intracellular delivery of Cathepsin D inhibitors: a potential target for cancer therapy. Journal of controlled release. 2013, Oct 28;171(2):251-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2013.07.017
4) L. Vezenkov, M. Maynadier, J.F. Hernandez, M. Averlant-Petit, O. Fabre, E. Benedetti, M. Garcia, J. Martinez and M. Amblard; Noncationic Dipeptide Mimic Oligomers As Cell Penetrating Nonpeptides(CPNP). Bioconjugate Chem. 2010, 21(10), 1850–1854. doi: 10.1021/bc1002086
5) D. Paramelle, G. Subra, L. Vezenkov, M. Maynadier, C. Andre, C. Enjalbal, M. Calmes, M. Garcia, J. Martinez, and M. Amblard; A Straightforward Approach for Cellular-Uptake Quantification. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49(44), 8240-8243. doi: 10.1002/anie.201003347