About our group
The Hocek group is interested in synthetic, bioorganic and medicinal chemistry of nucleic acids and their components. Novel types of modified derivatives and analogues of nucleobases, nucleosides, nucleotides and nucleic acids are designed and prepared for applications in all areas of biomedicinal sciences (medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, chemical biology, bioanalysis etc.). Basic developments of methodology for the synthesis of these modified biomolecules are performed largely using modern methods (including metal- or enzyme-catalyzed reactions).
Biological activity (antitumor, antiviral etc.) of the novel nucleobases, nucleosides and nucleotides is systematically studied in collaboration with several groups both in academia and in pharmaceutical industry, including mechanism of action and preclinical development of promising new cytostatics.
Enzymatic synthesis of functionalized nucleic acids bearing diverse interesting and useful substituents is developed and the modified oligonucleotides or nucleic acids are applied in bioanalysis (redox labelling for electrochemical detection or environment-sensitive fluorescence labelling for fluorescent microscopy) or in chemical biology (regulation of gene expression or cross-linking of DNA probes with proteins).
