Hans Christian Siebert

Title : Improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies against SARS CoV2 by blood pH analysis of Covid19 patients in combination with molecular modeling and NMR studies

Abstract:

The global outbreak of SARS CoV2/ Covid19 is a great challenge for new concepts and strategies in different fields as glycobiology, nanomedicine or nanopharmacology. When correlating clinical data obtained from patients in intense care units with tools used in structural biology such as NMR and molecular modelling it is possible to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies against SARS CoV2 and other viral infections (e.g. influenza) with a pandemic potential. At first, we have figured out in which way clinical data, in our case, pH value alterations can be directly linked to distinct structure related questions on a sub-molecular level. The effects of biophysical parameters such as temperature, pH value variation and membrane characteristics e.g. peptide solubility as well as the affinity of certain amino acids to sialic acids and sulfated carbohydrates provide helpful hints to identify a potential Achilles heel of SARS-CoV2 infections. In silico molecular modelling calculations and in vitro NMR experiments (including ³¹P NMR measurements) have been applied to analyse the structural behavior when potential antiviral peptides are encapsulted by dodecylphosphocholine (DPC). Since lectin-like interactions of sialic acid molecules play an important role when the blocking properties of inhibitory peptides are evaluated DPC micelles were mixed with gangliosides and analysed under physiological conditions with NMR methods. Thereby, we are able to test in which way SARS CoV fusion peptides and potential inhibitory SARS-CoV2 fusion peptides are interacting with phospholipid membranes and gangliosides in a specific way. We have found that the specific interactions of certain collagen fragments with certain SARS CoV2 structures which are involved in the stabilization of the blood brain barrier can be triggered by the application of incretin-mimetics.   

Biography:

Hans-Christian Siebert, born in Kiel, Germany, married, two sons; academic degrees: Dipl. Phys., Dr. rer. nat., Dr. med. vet. habil., Prof. of Biochemistry; study of physics and biochemistry at the Universities of Kiel and Heidelberg. Dissertation at the Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg and the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research. PostDoc at the University of Utrecht (NL), Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research at the Departments of Bioorganic Chemistry and NMR-Spectroscopy. Habilitation (Venia legendi for Biochemistry) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. Since 2007: Chair of Biochemistry and head of the institute for Biochemistry and Endocrinology, Faculty for Veterinary Medicine at the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen. Since 2010: Scientific director at the Research Institute for Bioinformatics and Nanotechnology (RI-B-NT) at the Kieler Innovations- und Technologiezentrum (KITZ). Since 2021 head of the RI-B-NT 2.0 – A Nanomedical Facility, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.