Lari Lehtiö, Ph.D.
Biocenter Oulu and Department of Biochemistry
University of Oulu
P.O. Box 3000
FI-90014 University of Oulu
Finland
Graduate students:
Harikanth Venkannagari
Our research group is interested in interfacing between experimental work (bioassay and crystallography) and computational methods in order to study and develop small molecule inhibitors. We are using x-ray crystallography to study pharmaceutically interesting protein targets. Our main focus is in the development of selective inhibitors for the enzymes of human poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase family. Structures are available for several catalytic domains of this 17 member enzyme family. We are working in parallel in developing assays suitable for high throughput screening of inhibitors and use structural information for the more rational design. We use x-ray crystallography and modeling to identify and rationalize structure-activity relationships of compounds.