Gertjan Colpaert

CV

Gertjan Colpaert graduated in 2022 from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ghent University as Master in Drug Development. During his master thesis, he joined the OBCR group to work on the synthesis of probes for the selective alkylation of G-quadruplex sequences. In 2022, he returned to the same group to start his PhD in Organic Chemistry as an FWO fundamental research PhD fellow under the supervision of Prof. Annemieke Madder.

His research project focuses on the synthesis and modification of DNA aptamers for the covalent trapping of cell-surface proteins.

Research Project

Crosslinking Aptamers for Covalent Protein Targeting

Aptamers are short single-stranded sequences of DNA or RNA that fold in a particular three-dimensional structure, which enables them to bind specifically and with high affinity to a certain target. In this sense, aptamers are very similar to antibodies, and are therefore often referred to as 'chemical antibodies'. However, aptamers have several advantages over antibodies, such as fast and straightforward synthesis, high thermostability and low immunogenicity. These features allow aptamers to be employed in various applications, including therapeutics, diagnostics and analytics.

This PhD project specifically focuses on DNA aptamers that bind cell-surface receptors overexpressed on cancer cells. The goal of the project is to develop a new type of aptamers that are able to selectively crosslink to their cell-surface receptor.