Welcome to Dr Niefang Yu ’s Group

Specializing in the design and synthesis of novel chemotherapeutic agents.
Research in the interface of chemistry and biology.

欢迎来访！

余聂芳，教授，博士生导师。1999年博士毕业于法国里尔巴斯德研究院和里尔第二大学药学院(Faculté de Pharmacy, Université de Lille II)，获博士学位。其后，先后在美国Thomas Jefferson 大学 (1999-2000)，田纳西大学Memphis分校和St Jude 儿童医院(2000-2001) 从事博士后研究工作。2002年3月加入美国Chiron公司和新加坡经济战略发展局(EDB)联合组建的药物研究与开发公司-S*BIO PTE LTD。2006年5月辞职回国，任中南大学药学院分子设计与药物发现研究所所长，升华学者，教授，博士生导师。主要研究方向包括药物分子设计和酶抑制剂的设计与合成。主要研究内容包括用计算机药物辅助设计，组合化学，及现代有机合成技术来进行抗肿瘤药物等的先导化合物的寻找设计及研究与开发。

欢迎有志于到本研究所攻读硕士、博士学位，进行博士后深造或工作的同仁前来垂询。

Biography

Dr Niefang Yu received his Ph.D. in 1999 in medicinal chemistry from Intitut Pasteur de Lille and Faculté de Pharmacie, Univerisité de Lille II, France, working on combinatorial chemistry and molecular design, under supervision of Professors Jean-Claude Jesquiére and André Tartar. From 1999-2000, he did postdoctoral research in Professor Ziwei Huang’s laboratory, Kimmel Cancer Center, Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. During 2000-2002, Dr Yu continued his postdoctoral training in Professors Richard Lee and Charles O. Rock’s laboratories, University of Tennessee in Memphis and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, focusing on computer-aided drug design and synthesis of PanK inhibitors as antimicrobial agents. Dr Yu was recruited to S*BIO PTE LTD in March 2002, a co-venture of Chiron (USA) and EDB of Singapore, as a scientist, working on design and synthesis of anticancer drugs. In May 2006, Dr Yu resigned from S*Bio and joined Central South University, as a professor in medicinal chemistry and director of the Institute of Molecular Design & Drug Discovery.

Research Summary
Dr Yu’s research interests include the understanding of chemical basis of molecular recognition in protein-ligand interactions, and translating such basic knowledge into the discovery of new drugs. The major research focus of Dr Yu’s group is the design and synthesis of novel anticancer chemotherapeutics. Aided by closely collaborations with microbiologists, biochemists, structure biologists, the primary interest of Dr Yu’s group is to generate novel chemical modulators of protein/enzyme biological function and use them as small molecular probes to explore the structure-function relationship and molecular mechanism of biological processes involved in cancer cell biology. The second goal is to further develop these molecular probes into new anticancer therapeutic agents. One example is our focus on design and synthesis of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. HDACs play important roles in cancer cell proliferation. Through precise computer-aided drug design, Dr Yu had proposed a hypothesis and based on his hypothesis, he was able to design novel and patentable target compounds with highly potent and selective enzymatic and cell-based activities against various cell lines. Series of patents about design and synthesis of HDAC inhibitors have been applied based on above Dr Yu’s concept. Among the target compounds designed by Dr Yu and synthesis by him and his colleagues in S*Bio, SB939 was proved to be the best-of-the-class so far regarding to tumor growth inhibition with excellent PK/PD profiles.

The typical research progression in Dr Yu’s group includes: target selection; lead identification based on either database and literature searching, and/or de novodesign; design and synthesis of novel focus libraries based on diverse & well-designed patentable scaffolds and/or selected privileged scaffolds; in vitrobiological evaluation; lead optimization through precise computer-aided drug design; in vivobiological evaluation; synthetic process development of important scaffolds as well as their intermediates. The core skills of Dr Yu’s laboratory are modern organic synthesis, high throughput parallel synthesis, and computer-aided drug design.
Present Grants
1 Starting funds for schloar of SHENGHUA, Central South University
2 National Scientific Foundation of China, Project No. **
3 National Scientific Foundation of China, Project No. **

Facility Resources
Among others, facility resources in our group also include:
Well equipped organic synthesis laboratories;
Advanced computer-aided drug design resources;
Nice decorated and equipped offices.

Positions

We have postdoctoral and technical staff positions available in our exciting and expanding multi-disciplinary research programs, especially in the following areas: (1) protein biochemistry; (2) organic chemistry, and/or medicinal chemistry; (3) computer modeling, bioinformatics and drug design.

We are also interested in graduate students and PhD students to join our lab working on all of the above areas.

Send Curriculum vitae with your telephone number and email address to:

Niefang Yu, PhD
Professor and Director
Institute of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Central South University
Changsha ， Hunan
P. R. China
Niefang_yu@yahoo.com
Tel: 0731-8265-0458
Fax: 0731-8265-0458

latest Publications ：
1. Haishan Wang, Niefang Yu, Hongyan Song, Dizhong Chen, Yong Zou, Weiping Deng, Pek Ling Lye, Joyce Chang, Melvin Ng, Stéphanie Blanchard, Eric T. Sun, Kanda Sangthongpitag, Xukun Wang, Kee Chuan Goh, Xiaofeng Wu, Hwee Hoon Khng, Lijuan Fang, Siok Kun Goh, Wai Chung Ong, Zahid Bonday, Walter Stünkel, Anders Poulsen, Michael Entzeroth. N-Hydroxy-1,2-disubstituted-1H-benzimidazol-5-yl acrylamides as novel histone deacetylase inhibitors: Design, synthesis, SAR studies, and in vivo antitumor activity. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters,2009, 19: 1403–1408.
2. Yu, Niefang; Liu, Xiaoyu; Hu, Xiaodong. Preparation of cinnamoylhydroxamic acid derivatives as histone deacetylase inhibitors for treatment of cancer. Faming Zhuanli Shenqing Gongkai Shuomingshu (2009), 36pp. CODEN: CNXXEV CN ** A **
3. Wen WU, Cheng LU, Si-yu CHEN, Niefang YU: the signal transduction pathway of multi-target kinase inhibitors as anticancer agents in clinical use or in phase III, Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica, 2009, 44(3):242-257.
4. Niefang Yuand Mingrong Wang: Anticancer Drug Discovery Targeting DNA Hypermethylation. Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2008, 15(14), 1350-3375.
5.Ma Dayou and Niefang Yu: Synthesis of Novel 2-Arylaminopyrimidine Derivatives. Chinese Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2008,28(8),1448-1453.