Project summary:

There have been no significant advances in the drug treatment of ischemic heart disease in recent decades as there is still no curative drug treatment on the market. Ischemic heart disease is the biggest killer globally, therefore, identifying new drug candidates must be a high priority research task leading to significant health and commercial benefits. The acute activation of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) in cardiac stress-adaptation has opened a new avenue for the development of therapies for ischemic heart disease. Our aim with our Turkish partners is to continue the development of our MMP inhibitors, some of them patented that we identified in previous Hungarian and international collaborations. The goal of our consortium is to identify MMP-inhibitor lead molecules designed and optimized utilizing recent developments in information technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements. The consortium then tests the efficacy of the lead molecules in in vitro and in vivo models. The Turkish partners will carry out the design, synthesis (University of Health and Sciences Türkiye), optimization and in silico development of MMP-inhibitors as well as off-target analysis (Yilmaz Bilisim R&D Ltd.). The Institute of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy, University of Szeged (SZTE) is investigating the in vitro effects of inhibitors and their protective effect against simulated ischemia/reperfusion injury in cell cultures. The Pharmahungary Group conducts in vivo studies of MMP inhibitors to test their cardioprotective effects in a rat model of acute myocardial infarction. The consortium will establish a long term international and interdisciplinary collaboration as well as commercialize the patents resulting from the collaboration. Our scientific results will be protected by international patent applications, the intellectual property will be further developed, and our results will be published in international Q1/D1-ranked journals.

See Press Release in Hungarian below.