PhD Student
Computational Drug Discovery

Licensed Pharmacist
M.Sc. Pharmaceutical Sciences

E-Mail: joana.massa@uni-muenster.de
Institute of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry
Corrensstr. 48
48149 Münster

 

 

 

 

Research Topic

In my work, I use in-silico tools like protein-ligand docking and molecular dynamics simulation to study ion channels. As part of the research training group Chembion, I am mainly interested in the modulation of these channels by small molecules. To this end, I will investigate the binding of ligands to KCa3.1, CatSper and HCN on the atomistic level.
My other target of interest are Formyl Peptide Receptors (FPR) which are G-protein coupled receptors. During my master's thesis I focused on small-molecule ligands of FPR2 and used metadynamics simualtions to elucidate the binding of those compounds to the receptor.

Publications

Menke, J., Massa, J., & Koch, O.  Natural Product Scores and Fingerprints Extracted from Artificial Neural Networks. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal. 2021, in press.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csbj.2021.07.032

Erlitz, K. S., Prinz, A.-K., Wagner, S., Massa, J., Dunker, C., Höhl, M., Griep, A. et al., Naphtho1,2-b1,4diazepinedione-Based P2X4 Receptor Antagonists from Structure-Activity Relationship Studies toward PET Tracer Development, J. Med. Chem. 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c02171