Partner 5: Institute of Chemistry [IC SAS], Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

The Institute of Chemistry is one of the largest academic research organizations in Slovakia. It has attained recognition as a center of excellence in a highly focused branch of research, the chemistry of saccharides, offering a distinctive environment for the pursuit and expansion of knowledge.

With respect to history and long tradition, the scientific activities are focused mainly on chemistryand biochemistry of carbohydrates with emphasis on following research directions: Synthesis and structure of mono- and oligosaccharides; conformational analysis; isolation and structural analysis of biologically active polysaccharides and their chemical modification; structure, function and mechanism of action of glycanases; microbial and plant polysaccharides; structure - activity relationship of plant cell wall derived oligosaccharides; enzyme systems degrading xylan, cellulose and pectin; gene engineering of nutritive and regulation proteins; bioengineering of polysaccharides, glycoconjugates and related compounds; ecology, taxonomy and phylogenesis of yeasts; synthesis of biologically active carbohydrates combined with nitrogen heterocyclic compounds. The Institute closely cooperates with many research establishments abroad and within the country. In this respect, a number of scientific projects have an interdisciplinary character. Scientists of the Institute are actively involved in European research, as IC SAS was a research partner in several FP5 projects and is a partner in several FP6 and FP7 projects.

The Institute organizes regularly international scientific conferences and symposia. The 13th European Carbohydrate Symposium, 10th Bratislava Symposium on Saccharides in the Smolenice Castle, 35th Annual Conference on Yeasts, and 20th International Specialized Symposium on Yeasts were organized recently. The main editing activity of the Institute is the publishing of Chemical Papers, the only Slovak chemistry journal printed in English. The Institute houses the Culture Collection of Yeasts, the largest yeast collection in Central Europe. The Production Department provides facilities for a large-scale isolation of natural compounds and synthesis of saccharides and their derivatives for commercial purposes. Some rare saccharides are produced here on a monopoly basis.
The Institute is a training base for scientific specializations: organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, physical chemistry, macromolecular chemistry, biotechnologies. In this field, doctoral and postdoctoral study including also study for foreign students is organized. During the past two years nine postgraduate students completed their theses under supervision of the Institute top research fellows. At the moment, the Institute has 25 postgraduate students in the above mentioned scientific fields. The Institute is involved in the education process at universities by lecturing, running laboratory experiments, and supervising work for earning diplomas. Recognized scientists act as external examiners to universities and function as chairmen or members of various commissions examining higher degree theses.

Dr. Igor Tvaroška, Director of the Institute, has over 30 years of experience in the field of physical chemistry and structural biology. The main interest of his group is focused on the applications of computational methods on problems in carbohydrate chemistry, biochemistry, nanoscience and structure-based drug design. Main progress was done in understanding mechanisms of inverting and retaining glycosyltransferases by means of the QM and hybrid QM/MM methods, and in structure-based design of potential transition-state analogs for glycosyltransferases and glycosylhydrolases. From 1995 to 2001 he was on the leave of absence from Institute of Chemistry of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (IC-SAS) at biotechnology company GlycoDesign, Inc., Toronto, Canada as a Director of Computational Chemistry Department, where he was involved in the structure-based design of carbohydrate processing inhibitors. He was engaged in several GlycoDesign projects that required a close collaboration with Departments of Medicinal chemistry and Biology. During this stay he gained an expertise in many aspects of drug design and development including design of glyco- and peptidomimetics.

Selected publications:

I. Tvaroška, I. Andre and J.P. Carver
Ab Initio Molecular Orbital Study of the Catalytic Mechanism of Glycosyltransferases. Description of Reaction Pathways and Determination of Transition States Structures for Inverting N-acetylglucosaminyltransferases.
J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 8762-8776.

M. Raab, S. Kozmon, I. Tvaroška
Potential Transition State Analogs for Glycosyltransferases.Design and DFT Calculations of Conformational Behavior.
Carbohydr. Res. 2005, 340, 1051-1057.

S. Kozmon, I. Tvaroška
Catalytic mechanism of Glycosyltransferases: HybridQuantum Mechanical/Molecular Mechanical study of the Inverting N-Acetylglucosaminyltransferase I.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 16921-16927.

L. Sihelníková, I. Tvaroška
Step by Step Towards Understanding Gold Glyconanoparticles as an Element of Nanoword.
Chem. Papers 2007, 61, 237-255.

L. Sihelniková, S. Kozmon, I. Tvaroška
DFT and docking study of potential transition state analogue inhibitors of glycosyltransferases
Collect. Czech. Chem. Commun  2008, 73, 591-607.

W. Košnik, W. Bocian, L. Kosnzerski, I. Tvaroška, M. Chmielewski
Enantioselective Epoxidation of Electrophilic Olefins Using Glycosyl Hydroperoxides.
Chem. Eur. J. 2008, 14, 6087-6097.

Links: http://www.chem.sk/
http://www.modlab.chem.sk/