Current Members
Szymanski Group / UMCG / University of Groningen
Permanent laboratory staff
Ilias Patmanidis, PhD
Ilias obtained his BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Democritus University of Thrace and his MSc in Bioinformatics and Data Analysis at the University of Geneva. During his PhD in Computational Chemistry at the University of Groningen, he studied the self-assembly of small dyes and the use of coarse-grained methods for multi-scale modelling of biomolecular systems. After his PhD, he worked as a researcher at the Aarhus University and the University of Oldenburg. In our lab, he is working as a research technician for Computer Aided Drug Design.
Robin van der Straat, BSc
Robin obtained his BSc degree in Chemistry at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen in 2015. In 2016 he joined the Drug Design research group of prof. Alexander Dömling as research technician. He worked on several projects such as macrocyclic Interleukin 17 (IL17) inhibitors, 1,5-disubstituted tetrazoles as antagonists of the programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and inhibitors for the SARS_CoV-2 main protease 3CLpro. In 2023 he joined the Szymanski group to fulfill the task of lab manager.
Post-Docs
Gülbahar Bozan, PhD
Gülbahar earned both BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry from Istanbul Technical University, with stays at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology and the University of Tartu, where she was involved several projects regarding the molecular design of potential drug candidates for different biological targets. In 2021, she started her doctoral studies at the University of Regensburg, focusing on pericyclic reactions in open-shell systems within the field of physical organic chemistry. Since 2024 she works in our laboratories on the optimization of light-responsive molecules.
Albert Schulte, PhD
Albert was born in Peize, the Netherlands in 1994. He obtained his bachelor degree at the University of Groningen in 2016. He conducted his master research project in the field of photopharmacology and obtained his PhD on the photocontrol of various biological processes. In Febraury 2024, he joined our lab as a post-doc to work on drugs activated with photons with differnet energies.
PhD students
Melody Boëtius, MSc
Melody obtained her BSc degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, where she worked on developing fluorescent dyes during her BSc research project. She then went on to study Drug Discovery & Safety (MSc) at the VU and did her MSc research project on developing a synthetic route and chiral resolution for the anti-HIV drug GS-6207. She is currently working in our lab as PhD student on molecular tools for optical imaging.
María Rosa Márquez García, MSc
Rosa obtained her BSc degree in Chemistry at the University of Seville, Spain. Here she synthesized novel inhibitors of NAMPT enzyme during her bachelor research project. Then she moved to Madrid to study her MSc in Organic Chemistry at the Complutense University of Madrid where she worked on the development of new synthetic methodologies based on allenes during her master research project. She is currently pursuing her PhD in our group on the development of photoacoustic medical imaging agents.
Le Nhat Quynh, MSc
Quynh studied for her Bachelor of Pharmacy at Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Vietnam, with an exchange at Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. In 2022, she pursued a Master's degree at Sunchon National University in South Korea. Her Master research focused on the synthesis of fluorescent probes together with cancer-targeting compounds, including prodrugs and PROTACs. In our lab, Quynh is developing new photocages for structural studies.
Raffaella Parlato, MSc
Raffaella obtained her MSc degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2019 at the University of Cagliari, Italy. She studied the isolation and crystallization of photosystem II supercomplex from Tobacco plants. Then she moved to the Netherlands, in 2020, to perform her PhD at the University of Groningen with Patrick Van der Wel and Wiktor Szymanski on solid-state NMR of responsive peptides and proteins.
Quentin Vivien, MSc
Quentin spent two years post high school in CPGE classes in Bordeaux, after which he entered in 2019 the chemistry department of the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay. For his BSc thesis, he joined the lab of Prof C. Ortiz Mellet in Seville to work on photoswitchable iminosugars. He obtained his MSc summa cum laude at the Ecole Polytechnique, which he completed by performing a research project in the Feringa group on PPG design. In 2022, he entered our group for a pre-PhD year working on the optical imaging selective for gram-Negative bacteria.
Master Students
Ali Arici
Ali obtained his BSc degrees in Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Groningen in 2023. For his BSc project, he worked on the detection of albumin using Raman spectroscopy. Currently, he is pursuing MSc degrees in Chemistry and Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences at the same university. For his first master's project, he researched using betaine as a substrate for synthesizing pharmaceutical building blocks via photocatalysis. He currently works in our group synthesizing novel photoswitchable ATP analogues.
Thalia Ibraimo, BSc
Thalia obtained her BSc degree in Chemistry and Material Chemistry at the University of Bologna in 2024. For her BSc internship, she studied the photophysical properties and the thermochemiluminescence of an acridine-based 1,2-dioxetane for possible exploitation in sensory devices. Afterwards, she decided to pursue her MSc degree in chemistry at the University of Groningen. She is now working on her MSc project in the SzymanskiLab, where she works on the synthesis and optimization of photocleavable groups for efficient uncaging of biologically relevant substrates.
Casper van Oploo, BSc
Casper obtained his BSc degree in Chemistry at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen in 2022. For his BSc internship, he worked on monomer and polymer synthesis at PolyVation and he continued working there for one more year. Afterwards, he did his pre-master in Chemistry at the University of Groningen (2023) after which he stayed to pursue his MSc degree. He currently works in our group synthesising coumarins with different linkers to determine their photochemical properties.
Maria Perraki, BSc
Maria obtained her BSc in Chemistry in 2022 at the University of Crete, Greece. From her lab experience during that time and her internship at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research during her gap year, she decided to pursue the interdisciplinary TopMaster in Nanoscience at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in 2023. For her master thesis, she is working in the Szymanski and Salvati labs to synthesise photocaged lipids with the aim to prepare light-responsive drug delivery systems out of it.
Feringa Group / University of Groningen
Annemarie Doze, MSc
Annemarie obtained her BSc degree in Chemistry at the University of Groningen. She continued with her MSc at the same university, during which she performed her master research project in our group on metabolic labelling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. To complete her MSc studies, she performed a research project in the group of Prof. Laura Kiessling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). In 2022, she returned to Groningen to perform her PhD research on ultrafast photoclick reactions for PET imaging.
David Grantz, MSc
David was born in Heidelberg, Germany. He obtained his BSc and MSc degree in chemistry at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. During his master studies, he spent a semester abroad in Italy at the Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro. For his master thesis, he worked under the supervision of Prof. Rainer Herges on generation of aryne-diazocines for incorporation in photocontrolled molecular pincers. In November 2022, he joined the Feringa group as a PhD student to work on the photocontrol of antibiotics within the bio-optical window.
Ilayda Peduk, MSc
Ilayda obtained her BSc in Chemistry, with an internship on asymmetric catalysis in the group of Prof. Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan at the University of Groningen (Sep. 2017) and a BSc in Sensor Technology with internship in Seoul (South-Korea) on off-axis digital holography in the super-depth imaging group of Prof. Wonshik Choi. Afterwards, she obtained an MSc in Chemistry (2020 – 2022), for which she did her research project on photocleavable antibiotics in the Feringa group. In 2022, she rejoined the Feringa group for a PhD on photopharmacology and molecular motors.