Kinetics of biologically relevant molecules and their metal-complexes

Various techniques (stopped flow, NMR, oxygen electrode, electrochemistry) are used to study the kinetics and mechanisms of redox reactions of biologically important molecules. In recent years our group has concentrated on the oxidation of catecholamines. The knowledge of the underlying chemistry involved has been used to help further understanding of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's Disease. In particular, we have studied the iron(III) oxidation of 6-hydroxydopamine which is a neurotoxin used in animal studies of Parkinson's Disease and are using these results to study iron release from the iron-storage protein ferritin.

This work is, off course, interdisciplinary in nature and we therefore work in collaboration with many people, who are listed below.

• Prof. A.-M. Albrecht-Gary, Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Bioinorganique, Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France
• Prof. R.R. Crichton, Unité de Biochimie, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
• Prof. L. Della Corte, Dipt. di Farmacologia Preclinica e Clinica, Univ. Firenze, Italy
• Prof. R.F. Jameson, Dundee, Scotland
• Prof. A.B. Koudriavtsev, Mendeleev Inst., Moscow, Russia
• Prof. J.-L. Pierre, Université Grenoble, France
• Prof. C. Oliviera, Center f. Neurosciences, Univ. of Coimbra, Portugal
• Prof. A. Shanzer, Dept. of Org. Chem., Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot, Israel
• Prof. K. Tipton, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland
• Dr. D. Dexter, Dept. of Pharmacology, Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, Imperial College London, Great Britain
• Dr. L. Zecca, Neuropharmacology and Neurochemistry Unit, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, Milano, Italy