Dan Stærk
Why should partners from HEALTH join our network?
Nature represents a treasure chest of benign-by-design bioactive compounds, and in some therapeutic areas natural products constitute - directly or indirectly - the majority of all approved drugs.
Thus, nature is the key to sustainable drug discovery and production in a future fossil-free world, and you should participate in the sustainable drug discovery network if you find interest in and have competencies related to the below areas:
From waste and underutilized resources to pharmaceutical products
Approximately 30% of all food ends up as waste, and resource-efficient enzymatic hydrolysis of protein-rich food and agricultural waste will allow a sustainable production of bioactive peptides for metabolic and infectious diseases.
Bioactive natural products
For certain therapeutic areas nature has directly or indirectly provided up to 70% of all drugs, and future emphasis should be on discovery of bioactive natural products and sustainable production of these via engineered microorganisms.
Green technology development
This includes i) discovery of specialized enzymes for chemoenzymatic synthesis of APIs, ii) miniaturization and use of sustainably produced solvents in analytical chemistry, and iii) green production using continuous manufacturing technologies.
MY OWN RESEARCH INTERESTS INCLUDE THE BELOW TOPICS RELEVANT FOR THE NETWORK:
- Sustainable natural products-based drug leads from plants, fungi and marine organisms
- Bioactive peptides and lipids from waste products from agriculture, fishery, and food industry
- Endophytic fungi as biofactories for sustainable production of bioactive natural products
- Development of miniaturised hyphenated bioanalytical technologies for accelerated drug lead discovery