Sven Marcel Stefan is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo (UiO) and the Oslo University Hospital (OUS) as well as an independent group leader at the LIED (University of Lübeck and University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein).
He is a pharmacist by training and focused in his Master (2011–2012) and Doctoral Studies (2012–2017) in Pharmaceutical Biology and Chemistry the extraction, isolation, and structural characterization of natural compounds as well as the organic synthesis of bioactive agents and structure-activity relationships.
He conducted his research and teaching at the Universities of Sydney (2019–2020) and Oslo (since 2020) focusing bioinformatics, structural biology, and novel drug discovery approaches. Since 2022, he is also co-leader of the PANABC (www.panabc.info) and PANSLC (www.panslc.info) projects.
Sven Marcel Stefan’s research includes mapping of polypharmacological landscapes and complex bioactivity networks of multitarget agents. The differentiation between selectivity and promiscuity and the elucidation of structure-activity relationships is a major focus of his research. The development of innovative pattern-based computational models for virtual screening approaches to discover bioactive polypharmacological agents is emphasized. These agents are used for the exploration and potential exploitation of under-studied drug targets, particularly ATP-binding cassette (ABC) and solute carrier (SLC) transporters associated with neurodegenerative, malignant, and dermatological diseases. Sven Marcel Stefan has extensive expertise in the functional assessment of drug transporters and high-throughput screenings (HTS) of large analog compound libraries, as well as in hit-to-lead optimization via organic synthesis.
The PANABC project (DFG-funded):
Sven Marcel Stefan is a project leader of the PANABC project, which focuses the development of truly multitarget pan-ABC transporter modulators for the exploration of under-studied sibling transporters as potential pharmacological drug targets of the future. Two major aims are the establishment of an ABC transporter modulators database (www.panabc.info) to strengthen data awareness as well as the functional characterization and exploitation of the so-called common structural and/or functional multitarget binding site amongst all/most ABC transport proteins. The PANABC project includes an international collaborative network providing a large-scale biological assessment platform, and it is supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG; #504079349).
Contact details
Phone: +49 451-3101-8401
Email: svenmarcel.stefan (at) uksh.de
Selected publications
Stefan, S. M.; Jansson, P. J.; Pahnke, J.; Namasivayam, V. A Curated Binary Pattern Multitarget Dataset of Focused ATP-binding Cassette Transporter Inhibitors. Sci Data 2022, 9 (1): 446.
Namasivayam, V.; Stefan, K.; Silbermann, K.; Pahnke, J.; Wiese, M.; Stefan, S. M.Structural Feature-driven Pattern Analysis for Multitarget Modulator Landscapes. Bioinformatics 2022, 38 (5), 1385–1392.
Namasivayam, V.; Stefan, K.; Pahnke, J.; Stefan, S. M. Binding Mode Analysis of ABCA7 for the Prediction of Novel Alzheimer’s Disease Therapeutics. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2021, 19, 6490–6504.
Namasivayam, V.; Silbermann, K.; Pahnke, J.; Wiese, M.; Stefan, S. M. Scaffold Fragmentation and Substructure Hopping Reveal Potential, Robustness, and Limits of Computer-aided Pattern Analysis (C@PA). Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2021, 19, 3269–3283.
Namasivayam, V.; Silbermann, K.; Wiese, M.; Pahnke, J.; Stefan, S. M. C@PA: Computer-aided Pattern Analysis to Predict Multitarget ABC Transporter Inhibitors. J Med Chem 2021, 64 (5), 3350–3366.
Silbermann, K.; Li, J.; Namasivayam, V.; Stefan, S. M.; Wiese, M. Rational Drug Design of 6-Substituted 4-Anilino-2-phenylpyrimidines for Exploration of Novel ABCG2 Binding Site. Eur J Med Chem 2021, 212, 113045.
Silbermann, K.; Li, J.; Namasivayam, V.; Baltes, F.; Bendas, G.; Stefan, S. M.; Wiese, M. Superior Pyrimidine Derivatives as Selective ABCG2 Inhibitors and Broad-spectrum ABCB1, ABCC1, and ABCG2 Antagonists. J Med Chem 2020, 63 (18), 10412–10432.
Silbermann, K.; Stefan, S. M.; Elshawadfy, R.; Namasivayam, V.; Wiese, M. Identification of Thienopyrimidine Scaffold as Inhibitor of the ABC Transport Protein ABCC1 (MRP1) and Related Transporters Using a Combined Virtual Screening Approach. J Med Chem 2019, 62 (9), 4383–4400.
Stefan, K.; Schmitt, S. M.; Wiese, M. 9-Deazapurines as Broad-spectrum Inhibitors of the ABC Transport Proteins P-glycoprotein, Multidrug Resistance-associated Protein 1, and Breast Cancer Resistance Protein. J Med Chem 2017, 60 (21), 8758–8780.
