Tzakos Andreas Τζάκος Ανδρέας

The primary goal of our lab is to understand biological processes at the molecular & atomic level, with the aim of using this knowledge to tackle specific problems in human health and disease. Special focus is given on cancer diagnostics, theranostics, tumor homing and tumor responsive drug delivery vehicles. We design and develop bioimaging agents (NIR, SWIR), inhibitors for a diverse class of therapeutic targets, theranostics, drug carriers, formulates to optimize the selective delivery of drugs in the disease site and for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. For the most promising compounds we evaluate their in vivo biodistribution as also their cell uptake using our recently established and ISO:17025 accredited LC-MS platform (BAC LAB). Our research encompasses a wide variety of projects directed towards the development of strategies and methods from the rational design, rapid chemical, chemico-enzymatic and KTGS synthesis, experimental screening of chemical libraries (small synthetic molecules, natural products, peptides, peptidomimetics) for a wide variety of therapeutic targets. For this, we utilize modern robotic synthetic and NMR methodologies complemented by numerous biophysical (fluorescence, CD, ITC, DSC), bioimaging and bioinformatic techniques to characterize the dynamic, structural and thermodynamic properties of the studied systems as also their interactions. Our lab operates under the ISO:17025 accreditation.

• Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY) (1995, 1997, 1998, 1999).
• Greek State Scholarship Foundation award (IKY) for excellence in undergraduate studies (1999).
• Marie Curie (2001, Univ. Florence, PARABIO, Italy).
• FEBS Summer Fellowship (2002, SONNMR, Univ. Utrecht, Netherlands).
• NATO fellowship (2001, International School, Erice, Sicily)
• EMBO fellowship (2002, EMBO practical course, Lucca, Italy).
• EMBO fellowship (2005, EMBO practical course, Basel, Switzerland).
• Greek State Scholarship Foundation award (IKY) for excellence in postgraduate studies (2002 Graduate Program in Bioinorganic Chemistry).
• Fellowship from the Greek Ministry of Education on the basis of student and research proposals qualifications (“Heracletos: Fellowships for Basic Research”);
• Leonidas Zervas Award (2004);
• EMBO long term fellowship & Medical Research Council fellowship (2004-2008, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK);
• Gardiki-Kouidou Award (2007, 59^th HSBMB, Athens);
• Erasmus Teaching Mobility (STA) (2008, CNRS, Marseille, France)
• Alexander Onassis foundation fellowship for the 59^th Meeting of Nobel Laureates, Lindau, Germany (2009).
• 1^st Award from the “Institute for The Study And Education On Thrombosis And Antithrombotic Therapy” (2017)
• Awardee of a prestigious Academy of Athens award(Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Fine Arts) in the field of study and therapy of cancer/heart diseases for his studies on the discovery of the first agent bearing triple antiplatelet activity. (21/12/2018) short interview here.

• [1] The patent WO 2013091883 has been filed (along with MRCT, LMB, Cambridge) towards the establishment of an electronic tuning methodology to construct GPCR subtype selective ligands.
• [2] A system and method for the production, assignment and biological evaluation of natural product analogues
• [3] Greece Industrial property Organization, patent no. 1009100: the smallest on line bioreactor for rapid biotransformation of natural products and ligand-protein interaction monitoring.
• [4] GEMCITABINE DERIVATIVES AND METHODS OF FORMING GEMCITABINE DERIVATIVES (REF M36357).
• [5] Novel PI3K inhibitors and applications thereof (No. 10 2020 202 356.5)

• [1] PRESS -PRotEin S-Sulfenylation server–our server predicts cysteine residues of a protein that are prone to undergo modification to sulfenic acid using SVM, Bioinformatics, in press

• [2] DIAB-DB: A Web-Accessible Database for the Prediction of Diabetes Drugs. our server predicts diabetes drugs through 2 axes; a) comparison by similarity with a curated database of anti-diabetic drugs and experimental compounds, and b) inverse virtual screening of the input molecules chosen by the users against a set of protein targets identified as key elements in diabetes.

• [3] Multidimenisional-Fingerprint analysis and Rapid Assignment of Complex Mixtures, coming soon

• Molecules
• Biochemistry & Pharmacology: Open Access
• E-Journal of Chemistry
• Journal of Drug Delivery (Lead Guest Editor in a Special issue: Novel Oncology Therapeutics)
• The Scientific World Journal

• 2009-Present     Ad Hoc reviewer for several peer reviewed Journals oriented in drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, cancer and biophysics
• 2009-Present     Expert evaluator for several National/International proposals
• 2017-                Expert evaluator for H2020 proposals

• [83]  Charisiadis P, et al., Determination of Polyphenolic Phytochemicals using Highly Deshielded -OH 1 H-NMR Signals Phytochem. Anal. 2017, May;28(3):159-170.

• [71]  Kounnis V. et al.,  Microcystin-LR shows cytotoxic activity against pancreatic cancer cells expressing the membrane OATP1B1 and OATP1B3 transporters, Anticancer Res.2015, in press

• [70]  Geromichalou E et al., Regioselective chemical and rapid enzymatic synthesis of a novel redox – antiproliferative molecular hybrid, Eur J. Med. Chem. 2015, 96:47-57.

• [69]  Kellici T.F. et al.,  Pharmaceutical compositions for antihypertensive treatments: a patent review, Expert Opin Ther Pat. 2015, in press

• [68]  Siskos MG et al., Accurate ab initio calculations of O-HO and O-H(-)O proton chemical shifts: towards elucidation of the nature of the hydrogen bond and prediction of hydrogen bond distances. Org Biomol Chem. 2015; 13(33):8852-68.

• [67]  Papaemmanouil C et al., Selective One-Dimensional Total Correlation Spectroscopy Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Experiments for a Rapid Identification of Minor Components in the Lipid Fraction of Milk and Dairy Products: Toward Spin Chromatography? J Agric Food Chem. 2015 63(22):5381-7.

• [66]  Primikyri A et al., Understanding zinc(II) chelation with quercetin and luteolin: a combined NMR and theoretical study. J Phys Chem B. 2015;119(1):83-95.
• [65]  Prodromidis M. et al, Preorganized composite material of polyaniline–palladium nanoparticles with high electrocatalytic activity to methanol and ethanol oxidation. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2015, in press
• [64]  Ferlemi A. et al., Rosemary tea consumption results to anxiolytic- and anti-depressant-like behavior of adult male mice and inhibits all cerebral area and liver cholinesterase activity; phytochemical investigation and in silico studies Chemico-Biological Interactions 2015, 237:47-57

• [63]  Milica Vujicic, eta al., Tzakos A., Stojanovic I. Methanolic extract of Origanum vulgare ameliorates type 1 diabetes through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic activity, Br J Nutr. 2015;113(5):770-82.

• [62]  Susumu Ishiguro et al., Involvement of angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2R) signaling in human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC): a novel AT2R agonist effectively attenuates growth of PDAC grafts in mice, Cancer Biol Ther. 2015 Feb;16(2):307-16.

• [61]  Tahsin F. Kellici et al., Investigation of the interactions of silybin with 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin through biophysical techniques and computational methods, Mol Pharm.201512(3):954-65.

• [60]  Kellici T. et al., Rational Drug Design Paradigms: The Odyssey for designing better Drugs. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen. 2015, in press

• [59]  Tahsin F. Kellici et al., Rational Drug Design and Synthesis of Molecules Targeting the Angiotensin Receptors AT1 and AT2, Molecules. 2015; 20(3):3868-97.

-2014-

• [58]  Magnani F., et al., Tzakos A* Electronic tuning of angiotensin II selectivity to its GPCRs AT1R and AT2R, ACS Chemical Biology, in press, DOI: 10.1021/cb500063y
• [57]  Primikiri A., et al., Tzakos A* Direct binding of Bcl-2 family proteins by quercetin triggers its pro-apoptotic activity, ACS Chemical Biology, in press
• [56]  Karampelas T., et al. GnRH-Gemcitabine Conjugates for the Treatment of Androgen-Independent Prostate Cancer: Pharmacokinetic Enhancements Combined with Targeted Drug Delivery, Bioconjugate Chemistry, 25, 813-823
• [55]  Stamatopoulou V., et al., On the Role of the appended P19 domain in type A RNAs of bacterial RNase P, Biochemistry, 53, 1810-1817
• [54]  Ntountaniotis D. et al. The application of solid state NMR spectroscopy to study Candesartan Cilexetil (TCV-116) membrane interactions. Comparative study with the AT1R antagonist drug olmesartan. Biochim. Biophys Acta, , in press

• [53]  Stathopoulos  P., et al., Tzakos* A.,  A rapid and efficient method for the synthesis of selectively S-Trt or S-Mmt protected Cys-containing peptides, Amino Acids, 46, 1367-1376
• [52]  Charisiadis P., et al. ¹H NMR as a Structural and Analytical Tool of Intra-and Inter-molecular Hydrogen Bonds of Phenol Containing Natural Products and Model Compounds, Molecules, in press
• [51]  Charisiadis P., et al. Dynamic changes in composition of extracts of natural products as monitored by in situ NMR: the role of entropy, Magn Reson Chem, in press
• [50]  Ferlemi AV. et al., Phytochemical analysis, in silico studies and in vivo evaluation of rosemary tea on behavioral parameters and AChE activity, 
• [49]  Tahsin Kellici et al., Rational Drug Design Paradigms: The Odyssey for designing better Drugs,  Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening, in press
• [48]  Primikyri A et al., Understanding Zinc(II) Chelation with Quercetin and Luteolin: A Combined NMR and Theoretical Study. J Phys Chem B. 2014, in press

-2013-

• [47]  Tzakos A.G*., et al., Novel Oncology Therapeutics: Targeted Drug Delivery for Cancer, J Drug Deliv. 2013;2013:918304
• [46]  Siskos M., et al. Investigation of solute-solvent interactions in complex phenol compounds at a molecular level: accurate ab initio calculations of solvent effects on ¹H NMR chemical shifts, Org Biomol Chem. 2013 Nov 14;11(42):7400-11
• [45]  Charisiadis P. et al., Entropy Driven Dynamic Changes in Composition of Extracts of Natural Products Monitored by in situ NMR, submitted
• [44]  Kounnis, V, et al., Microcystin LR is a new candidate molecule for the development of novel therapeutics against pancreatic cancer specifically expressing the OATP1B3 transporter, submitted
• [43]  Apostolopoulos V., et al. Targeting antigens to dendritic cell receptors for vaccine development, J DrugDeliv., in press
• [42]  Athena A Papadopoulou et al., Enzymatic hybridization of α-lipoic acid with bioactive compounds in ionic solvents, Bioresource Technology, in press
• [41]  Stathopoulos P., et al., Side reactions in the SPPS of Cys-containing peptides, Amino Acids,  2013 May;44(5):1357-63
• [40]  Kontogianni, V., et al. Tzakos A*. Olive leaf extracts as a natural source of potent advanced glycation end products (AGE) inhibitors, J. Med Food., in press
• [39]  Froudarakis M., et al., (2013) Revisiting bleomycin from pathophysiology to safe clinical use, Critical Reviews in Oncology Hematology, in press
• [38]  Kontogianni, V., et al., Tzakos, A.*,  (2013) Phytochemical profile of Rosmarinus officinalis and Salvia officinalis extracts and correlation to their antioxidant and anti-proliferative activity, FoodChem., in press
• [37]  Buxhofer-Ausch V., et al. (2013) Tumor-specific expression of organic anion-transporting polypeptides (OATPs) as novel targets for improved cancer therapy, J Drug Deliv., in press
• [36]  Kontogianni, V., et al.,  Hydrogen Bonding Probes of Phenol-OH Groups: Shielding Ranges, Solvent Effects and Temperature Coefficients of 1H NMR Shieldings and OH Diffusion Coefficients, Org. Biomol. Chem, in press

-2012-

• [34]  Koutsotoli A., Tzakos, A.G.* (2012) Host – pathogen crosstalking: The mastery of taking the helm of the host, Structure, 2012, invited
• [33]  Kyriakou, E., Primikyri, A., Charisiadis, P., Katsoura, M., Gerothanassis, I., Stamatis, H., and Tzakos A*, (2012) Unexpected Enzyme-Catalyzed Regioselective Acylation of Flavonoid Aglycones & Rapid Product Screening, Org. Biomol. Chem, 2012, 10 (9), 1739 – 1742.

• [32]  Primikyri, A., et al., Tzakos A*, Gerothanassis I. (2012) Fine-Tuning the Diffusion Dimension of -OH Groups for the Application of High Resolution DOSY NMR in Mixture Analysis of Organic Compounds, Tetrahedron, 68, 6887-6891.

• [31]  Tzakos A, et al.,  (2012) Exploration of the antiplatelet activity profile of betulinic acid on human platelets, J. Agr. Food. Chem.,   in press  (DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf3006728).

• [30]  Vasilopoulou, C. Kontogianni, V., Linardaki, Z., Iatrou, G., Lamari, F., Nerantzaki, A., Gerothanassis, I., Tzakos, A.*, Margarity., M.* (2012) Phytochemical composition of “mountain tea” from Sideritis clandestina subsp. clandestina and evaluation of its behavioural and oxidant/antioxidant effects on adult mice Eur. J. of Nutr., DOI 10.1007/s00394-011-0292-2,  in press (awarded also by the HSN in the 5^th HS for Neuroscience Meeting).

• [29]  Charisiadis P., et al., (2012) A Rapid and Direct Low Micromolar NMR method for the Simultaneous Detection of Hydrogen Peroxide and Phenolics in Plant Extracts, J. Agr. Food Chem., in press

• [28]  Koutsotoli A., Tzakos, A.G.* (2012) Targeting the Diseasome Complexity with Natural Sources, in press (invited)

• [27]  Tzakos A.* (2012),Intrinsic Protein Disorder as a Drug Target in Oncology: Designing Drugs Targeting Plasticity, Biochem & Pharmacol1:e107. doi:10.4172/bcpc.1000e107, (invited)

• [26]  Pappas, C., Tzakos, A., Gerothanassis, I., On the Hydration State of Amino Acids and their Derivatives at Different Ionization States: A Comparative Multinuclear NMR and Crystallographic Investigation, (invited)

-2011-

• [25]  Valentinos Kounnis, Elli Ioachim, Martin Svoboda, Andreas Tzakos, Ioannis Sainis, Theresia Thalhammer, Georg Steiner, Evangelos Briasoulis (2011)  Expression of organic anion-transporting polypeptides 1B3, 1B1, and 1A2 in human pancreatic cancer reveals a new class of potential therapeutic targets.   Onco Targets Ther 4: 27-32.

• [24]  Charisiadis P., Primikyri A., Exarchou, V., Tzakos, A., Gerothanassis, I. (2011) Unprecedented Ultra High-Resolution Hydroxy Group 1H NMR Spectroscopic Analysis of Plant Extracts,  J. Nat. Prod., 74, 2462-6.

• ​[23]  Andreas G Tzakos*, Demosthenes Fokas, Charlie Johannes, Vassilios Moussis, Eleftheria Hatzimichael, Evangelos Briasoulis (2011)  Targeting oncogenic protein-protein interactions by diversity oriented synthesis and combinatorial chemistry approaches.   Molecules 16: 6. 4408-4427 05 (invited)

-2010-

• [22]  Vassiliki Stamatopoulou, Chrisavgi Toumpeki, Andreas Tzakos, Anastassios Vourekas, Denis Drainas (2010)  Domain architecture of the DRpp29 protein and its interaction with the RNA subunit of Dictyostelium discoideum RNase P.   Biochemistry 49: 50. 10714-10727

• [21]  Konstantinos Skobridis, Maria Kinigopoulou, Vassiliki Theodorou, Emilia Giannousi, Alison Russell, Rakhee Chauhan, Roberta Sala, Nicola Brownlow, Serafim Kiriakidis, Jan Domin, Andreas G Tzakos, Nick J Dibb (2010)  Novel imatinib derivatives with altered specificity between Bcr-Abl and FMS, KIT, and PDGF receptors.   ChemMedChem 5: 1. 130-139

• [20]  Ioannis Sainis, Demosthenes Fokas, Katerina Vareli, Andreas G Tzakos, Valentinos Kounnis, Evangelos Briasoulis (2010)  Cyanobacterial cyclopeptides as lead compounds to novel targeted cancer drugs.   Mar Drugs 8: 3. 629-657 03

-2009-

• [19]  Dimitrios H Roukos, Andreas Tzakos*, George Zografos (2009)  Current concerns and challenges regarding tailored anti-angiogenic therapy in cancer.   Expert Rev Anticancer Ther 9: 10. 1413-1416

• [18]  Sarath Chandra Janga, Andreas Tzakos (2009)  Structure and organization of drug-target networks: insights from genomic approaches for drug discovery.   Mol Biosyst 5: 12. 1536-1548.

-2007-

•  [17]  Andreas G Tzakos, Laura E Easton, Peter J Lukavsky (2007)  Preparation of large RNA oligonucleotides with complementary isotope-labeled segments for NMR structural studies.   Nat Protoc 2: 9. 2139-2147

• [16]  Latifa ElAntak, Andreas G Tzakos, Nicolas Locker, Peter J Lukavsky (2007)  Structure of eIF3b RNA recognition motif and its interaction with eIF3j: structural insights into the recruitment of eIF3b to the 40 S ribosomal subunit.   J Biol Chem 282: 11. 8165-8174

• [15]  Vassiliki Theodorou, Konstantinos Skobridis, Andreas G Tzakos, Valentine Ragoussis (2007)  A simple method for the alkaline hydrolysis of esters.   Tetrahedron Letters 48: 8230-8233

-2006-

• [14]  Andreas G Tzakos, Laura E Easton, Peter J Lukavsky (2006)  Complementary segmental labeling of large RNAs: economic preparation and simplified NMR spectra for measurement of more RDCs.   J Am Chem Soc 128: 41. 13344-13345

• [13]  Andreas G Tzakos, Christy R R Grace, Peter J Lukavsky, Roland Riek (2006)  NMR techniques for very large proteins and rnas in solution.   Annu Rev Biophys Biomol Struct 35: 319-342

• [12]  Andreas G Tzakos, Nawazish Naqvi, Konstantinos Comporozos, Roberta Pierattelli, Vassiliki Theodorou, Ahsan Husain, Ioannis P Gerothanassis (2006)  The molecular basis for the selection of captopril cis and trans conformations by angiotensin I converting enzyme.   Bioorg Med Chem Lett 16: 19. 5084-5087

-2005-

• [11]  Andreas G Tzakos, Ioannis P Gerothanassis (2005)  Domain-selective ligand-binding modes and atomic level pharmacophore refinement in angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors.   Chembiochem 6: 6. 1089-1103

• [10] A. Tzakos, P. Kursula, V. Theodorou, T. Tselios, C. Svarnas, J. Matsoukas, A. Troganis, V. Apostolopoulos, I. Gerothanassis.(2005) Structure and Function of the Myelin Proteins: Current Status and Perspectives in Relation to Multiple Sclerosis. Cur. Med. Chem.  12, 13, 1569-1587.

-2004-

• [9] Andreas G Tzakos, Patrick Fuchs, Nico A J van Nuland, Anastasios Troganis, Theodore Tselios, Spyros Deraos, John Matsoukas, Ioannis P Gerothanassis, Alexandre M J J Bonvin (2004)  NMR and molecular dynamics studies of an autoimmune myelin basic protein peptide and its antagonist: structural implications for the MHC II (I-Au)-peptide complex from docking calculations.   Eur J Biochem 271: 16. 3399-3413

• [8] Andreas G Tzakos, Ioannis P Gerothanassis, Anastassios N Troganis (2004)  On the structural basis of the hypertensive properties of angiotensin II: a solved mystery or a controversial issue?   Curr Top Med Chem 4: 4. 431-444

-2003-

• [7] Andreas G Tzakos, Athanassios S Galanis, Georgios A Spyroulias, Paul Cordopatis, Evy Manessi-Zoupa, Ioannis P Gerothanassis (2003)  Structure-function discrimination of the N- and C- catalytic domains of human angiotensin-converting enzyme: implications for Cl- activation and peptide hydrolysis mechanisms.   Protein Eng 16: 12. 993-1003

• [6] Athanassios S Galanis, Georgios A Spyroulias, Roberta Pierattelli, Andreas Tzakos, Anastassios Troganis, Ioannis P Gerothanassis, George Pairas, Evy Manessi-Zoupa, Paul Cordopatis (2003)  Zinc binding in peptide models of angiotensin-I converting enzyme active sites studied through 1H-NMR and chemical shift perturbation mapping.   Biopolymers 69: 2. 244-252

• [5] Andreas G Tzakos, Alexandre M J J Bonvin, Anasstasios Troganis, Paul Cordopatis, Mario L Amzel, Ioannis P Gerothanassis, Nico A J van Nuland (2003)  On the molecular basis of the recognition of angiotensin II (AII). NMR structure of AII in solution compared with the X-ray structure of AII bound to the mAb Fab131.   Eur J Biochem 270: 5. 849-860

• [4] Georgios A Spyroulias, Panagiota Nikolakopoulou, Andreas Tzakos, Ioannis P Gerothanassis, Vassiliki Magafa, Evy Manessi-Zoupa, Paul Cordopatis (2003)  Comparison of the solution structures of angiotensin I & II. Implication for structure-function relationship.   Eur J Biochem 270: 10. 2163-2173

BOOK CHAPTERS

-2003-

• [3] I Gerothanassis, A Tzakos, A Troganis, P Cordopatis, A Bonvin, N van Nuland (2003)  On the Molecular Basis of Hypertension: Structural Studies of ACE, AI AII and its analogues   In: Hellenic Medical Pharmaceutical Review

-2002-

• [2] Andreas Tzakos et al. (2002)  Conformational Studies of a Myelin Basic Protein Epitope 74-85 Implicated in Multiple Sclerosis   In: Bioactive Peptides in Drug Discovery and Design: Medical Aspects, Biomedical and Health Series, Edited by:J. Matsoukas and T. Mavromoustakos. 180-187 Ios Press, Amsterdam, the Netherland

-2001-

• [1]  A G Tzakos, A Troganis, I G Gerothanassis, N Assimomytis, V Magafa, E Manessi-Zoupa, E Bissyris, P Cordopatis (2001)  Two Dimensional NMR Studies of Angiotensin II and Biologically Important Analogues   In: Peptides (J.Martinez, Ed.), Editions EDK, Paris, (2001). Edited by:J.Martinez. Paris: Editions EDK