Codeχ webinars re-started: Prof. Dr. Francisco Goycoolea from Murcia, Spain, talked about “Decoding chitosans’ mucosal, gene delivery, and antimicrobial activities”

Today, we re-started the monthly webinar series on structure-function relationships of chitosans organized by our DFG-funded Priority Program Codeχ on Chito-Protein Interactions. Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher welcomed our former colleague Prof. Francisco Goycoolea who has recently moved from the University of Leeds in the UK to the University of Murcia in Spain. Francisco will be our first Codeχ Mercator fellow, visiting us this summer for one month, to explore possibilities for collaborations with different Codeχ partners. Francisco presented an overview of his research from the past years, partly done in collaboration with us while he was in Münster and then also in Leeds. He visualized the binary interactions between chitosans, bacteria, the mucosa, and nucleic acids as a tetrahedron, a three-sided pyramid. He showed how they are influenced by the structural parameters of the chitosans used, including their fraction and pattern of acetylation. And in the end, he aimed for a more comprehensive view, to begin understanding the ternary and quaternary interactions. Demanding! But if there is anyone who can handle these, juggle with all of them at a time – who other than Francisco? He does not shy away from even the weirdest complexities. We are looking forward for more to come.