Synthesis and CytostatIc Evaluations of NovEl Nitrogen heTeRocycles librarY (SCIENcENTRY) is research project financed by Croatian Science Foundation.

Project leader is Prof. Dr. Silvana Raić-Malić, full professor at Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology University of Zagreb.

Project duration: 2014 – 2018

The project participants are researchers from Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology (Department of Organic Chemistry) University of Zagreb, Faculty of Textile Technology University of Zagreb, Institute of Biotechnology University of Zagreb and Ruđer Bošković Institute.

The proposed scientific project is highly interdisciplinary and objective-oriented with the principal aim to develop the novel lead compounds with pronounced and selective anticancer activity that would be used for further phases of drug development. To achieve the principal aim following specific tasks are foreseen. The goal of the first one is to synthesize small-compound library comprising new conjugates of pseudopurines, coumarines and quinolines with 1,2,3-triazole scaffold, N-acyclic 5-unsaturated pyrimidine derivatives, amino-, amido- and amidino substituted benzimidazole, benzothiazole and benzo[b]thieno-2-carboxamide derivatives.

Molecule library will be created using click chemistry in preparation of 4,5- and 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazole tethered heterocycles, eco-friendly microwave and photochemical synthetic approaches as well as classical organic synthetic methods.

The aim of the second task is to predict plausible biological targets and pharmacological activities using cheminformatics/in silico analysis. The third task is to perform cytostatic evaluations based on which hit molecules with desired biological effect will be selected for structure optimization that will be subsequently carried out. Finally, the molecular mechanism studies are anticipated for the most effective compounds from synthesized N-heterocycles library.