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SELENT, JANA

Coordinator of Molecular Simulations

Jana Selent is a Miguel Servet researcher at IMIM, an associate professor at the University Pompeu Fabra and head of the GPCR Drug Discovery group of the IMIM-UPF joint Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics (GRIB).

She became an authorized Pharmacist in 2000 and obtained her PhD in drug design at the Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany) in 2004.

Between 2004-2006, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and as visiting scientist at Martin-Luther University (Halle, Germany) before joining the GRIB in 2007.

Jana is author of more than 45 scientific articles in the field of GPCR research.

Currently, she is the coordinator of Molecular Simulations within the MSc on Bioinformatics for Health Sciences (UPF) and Introduction to Drug Research & Development in the degree of Biomedical Engineering (UPF). In addition, she teaches Computer-Assisted Drug Design within the MSc on Bioinformatics for Health Sciences and Structural Biology at Human Biology Degree (UPF).

Since 2015, she is a member of the Good Scientific Practice group of the PRBB, thus actively helping to promote good practice in scientific integrity amongst researchers.

 

Research lines

The GPCR drug discovery group is focused on the functionality of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the context of CNS-related disorders taking into account:

 

  • receptor plasticity and activation mechanism

  • ligand binding and signaling bias

  • the effect of the membrane and other interaction partners.

 

The final goal is to translate obtained molecular insights into the design of drug candidates with improved therapeutic profiles.

Since 2016, Jana coordinates the international GPCRmd community which aims at shedding light into GPCR dynamics using molecular dynamics simulation. Obtained simulation data are shared at a public accessible server - the GPCRmd server.