Andy on fire!

During the summer, there are a lot of interesting conferences going on around the world, and like previous years, we have spread to different events according to our own wishes. Andy went alone this summer to the 59th International Conference on Medicinal Chemistry (RICT 2025) in Orléans, France, on July 2-4, 2025, and presented his results of Piezo1 agonists and their prodrugs on a poster. And to our surprise, he won the poster prize!!! And I'm only saying that it was a surprise, since usually these prizes go either to organizers' students or their close friends' students, not because I didn't that our posters are not good enough! Of course, they always are the best quality (excluding the ever-changing fabric source...)! Well done, Andy! We are very proud of you!

EACPT Congress in Helsinki

Just before the holidays, Janne and I were able to attend the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT2025) "Embracing Innovations for Optimized Patient Care" meeting in Helsinki, 28.6-1.7.25. This was the first time to meet and greet the clinicians, but I must admit that I was positively surprised by how broad a range of topics the conference covered and how well they met the preclinical scientists' points of view. So I can highly recommend this conference, particularly to early-stage researchers as well as those heading to develop something for clinical use. Even though we were too modest to submit the abstracts (we should have done it!), our work, i.e., Arun's OATP modelling was presented by Carolina Säll from NovoNordisk. Perhaps, more about that collaboration later on. I was also amazed at the conference dinner, that right after the dissert, almost all the participants basically ran for the dance floor, which left me thinking if the clinicians are a bit more hilarious people than basic researchers...?!? 😂

Anyway, well-spent days (also from the family point of view!), a lot of crucial networking and discussions, and hopefully something new arising from this event, again!

New Hot Release

Finally, our paper on the pharmacokinetic properties of LAT1 (L-type amino acid transporter 1)-utilizing prodrug of capsaicin was published in European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics. This was Janne's third and last article in his Ph.D. thesis and the aim was to achieve dual-targeting not only into the brain but also in the pancreas, and to have beneficial anti-inflammatory effects against the diseases interlinked in these organs, like neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes. Our prodrug had an extended exposure and improved target tissue distribution compared to the capsaicin, decreasing the peak concentrations in the brain and pancreas. The prodrug also showed promising effects against prostaglandin production after the LPS (lipopolysaccharide)-induction and was found safe in human blood in vitro assays. Moreover, since capsaicin alone suffers from poor bioavailability, quick metabolism, and(neuro)toxicity with high concentrations, which hinders its clinical use against a low-grade inflammation, the LAT1-utilizing prodrug approach can offer a great alternative to circumvent the unfavourable pharmaceutical issues related to highly potent natural compounds.

So Big Thanks to all co-authors for putting this together and congratulations for Janne, for finalizing and putting the period for the Ph.D. thesis! If you are interested, you can find more information about the publication from here: "Amino acid prodrug of capsaicin improves pharmacokinetic properties in the mouse brain and pancreas" (link).