Unveiling Protein-Ligand Dynamics with HDX-MS: iBET at Novalix Biophysics in Drug Discovery 2025
Ligand Interaction Insights Through the Integration of HDX-MS in Biophysical Analysis
Researchers from iBET’s Merck Healthcare Satellite Lab (Tiago Bandeiras, Alessio Bortoluzzi and Catarina Malta) participated in the 11th Novalix Conference Biophysics in Drug Discovery, held in Strasbourg, France, from May 20-22.
PhD student Catarina Malta delivered an oral presentation on “Enhancing Protein: Ligand Interaction Insights Through the Integration of HDX-MS in Biophysical Analysis“.
Her talk explored the application of HDX-MS to study both weak and potent ligands binding to Cyclophilin D (CypD). These findings highlight HDX-MS as a valuable tool in Fragment-Based Drug Discovery (FBDD), especially for targets that cannot be studied with higher resolution structural techniques, such as X-Ray crystallography and NMR.
The work presented was part of Catarina’s doctoral thesis, and was conducted in close collaboration with our valued partner Merck Healthcare KGaA and supported by Merck Portugal.
This year’s edition of the conference was held under the moto “Developing the synergy between Biophysics and Medicina Chemistry to deliver better drugs”, featuring five focused sessions on cellular biophysics, interplay between biophysics and chemical biology, integrative biophysics and RNA world and emerging hot topics.
Congratulations Catarina and the entire team for their invaluable contributions to the field. A thank you note goes to our partners at Merck Healthcare KGaA and Merck Portugal for their continued collaboration and support.
Also attending the conference was Matthias Frech (iBET), further representing iBET’s commitment to advancing the interface of biophysics and drug discovery.
From left to right: Alessio Bortoluzzi, Tiago Bandeiras, Catarina Malta and Matthias Frech