13TH INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SCHOOL
Antimicrobials: An infinity war
Medicinal Chemistry & Computer Science
What do we know about bacteria and viruses? They are all around us, some even live within us. The fact is that a large number of microorganisms do not pose a danger to the human organism. However, it often happens that the effects of pathogenic microorganisms are serious enough to critically endanger human life. We do not know everything about them, because their world is very diverse and certain microorganisms are yet to be discovered and described.

Nowadays we have the opportunity to get up-to-date information about microbes on the internet, TV, or even in newspapers. For example, conquering COVID19, HIV, Ebola, malaria, MRSA, tuberculosis, etc. is a source of inspiration for scientists. One could say that we are in a constant war with these tiny creatures. Therefore, if we want to escape the probability of an apocalyptic scenario, we must not lose. But are we able to endure?
The resistance of microbes to antimicrobial therapy is a serious problem caused mostly by the human factor: using and abusing the therapeutics. We as scientists and those yet to be, have a big task ahead of us: to prevent the development of resistance in every possible way. We must find a weapon for this fight!
Using sophisticated computational chemistry tools we will try to design new, better medicines to stop antimicrobial resistance. Some of us are going to succeed, maybe achieving a discovery worthy of the Nobel prize itself! If you want to learn design techniques for potential new drugs, this project is the right place for you! Let's touch the top of this iceberg, and let's help to bring this war to an end game!
Technical requirements

Minimum required power of laptops/computers:
Processor: AMD A9-9410 RADEON R5, 2.90 GHz or equivalent
Graphics: AMD Radeon (TM) R5 or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB or higher

Tutor

Ivana Jevtić

Belgrade, Serbia
Almost a year now since Dr Ivana Jevtic finished her PhD, but her work as a research scientist and teaching assistant at the Faculty of Chemistry spawn for six years. Ivana believes that chemistry is amazing because you can do a bunch of cool stuff in the lab! She prefers Organic and Medicinal Chemistry because it explains how life works, on the molecular level. She says that, when you are a scientist, you can meet a lot of nerds like yourself, who like SciFi books, movies and games and in general, know a lot of unimportant trivia about a lot of stuff. And one more thing, scientists never grow old. That is what Ivana likes about it! This is her fourth time to be a tutor at IRS, the experience of that is precious.

Zoran Knezevic

Sarajevo,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Zoran comes from the small, mountainous city of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the past four years, he has been working on an oncology project at the University of Hamburg in Germany, where he received his Ph.D. During his doctorate, he worked on developing various cloning strategies as well as organ-associated gene delivery. He is a pharmacist by profession, a specialist in pharmaceutical health care. Having a great interest in the creation of individual therapies for patients, he believes that we should all cooperate with each other in that way.

In his free time, Zoran likes to explore the world's most exotic plants. Given the place he comes from, he is also a big fan of hiking. He even promised himself that during his life he would visit the most important mountains in the world. If you see him on a hill in the early morning, you should know - he is waiting for the sun to rise, which is both the essence and the meaning of his name.
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