We recently got acceptance also for Andy's first Ph.D. thesis paper, from a project that was started together with Prof. Tarja Malm during COVID-19. So Janne and Tiina were the first ones involved in the project but then, later on, Andy joined in the process. After quite many revisions, our work is finally now published under the title "Brain-targeted Jedi1 and Jedi2 derivatives as potent enhancers of Piezo1 ion channel activity (link)" in a prestigious European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry journal. In this study, we developed novel brain-targeted activators for the mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1. Originally, they were supposed to be prodrugs, but they turned out to be active derivatives instead. Not a bad outcome, since then there is no worries about the bioconversion phase. 😎 And yes, they really are called Jedi derivatives (not originally by us, the parents were named by others after the first found analog, Yoda1). I have called them as Leias, since there have to be a gender balance, but those names never ended up in our paper. You can still found it in our lab notebooks! 😍 Big thanks for all the co-authors and congratulations for Andy, we are one step closer to the Ph.D. defense!
