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The international project 'In silico analysis of bioactive peptides from invasive Halophila Stipulacea', funded by the Higher Education Council of Turkey (Yüksekögretim Kurulu), aims to seek a pharmacological use of the biocomponents of the 'Halophila' algae.

Stipulacea ', an invasive marine plant of the Indian Ocean that has settled on the Turkish coast in a massive way.

For this analysis process, the Turkish university Dokuz Eylül University has chosen the BIO-HPC Group of the UCAM, led by Horacio Pérez and in which the researchers José Pedro Cerón and Helena Den-Haan participate, to detect possible relationships between the peptides collected in a first phase by the Turkish group.

Both research teams will share knowledge in different work meetings to be held in the two countries.

In addition, the project includes two research stays of up to four months for doctoral students Nazli Mert-Ozupek (Turkey) and Helena Den-Haan (Spain), with the aim of promoting the transfer of knowledge in the area of ​​computational chemistry and the discovery of new drugs.

At this moment, the first phase of the project has been completed, in which the classification, extraction and obtaining of the peptides has been carried out, which the main researcher of the Turkish group, Levent Cavas, has personally handed over to the Catholic University so that start the process of predicting possible uses against diseases, and then assess the percentage obtained and its possible application to linked diseases.

Levent Cavas: "We chose the UCAM for the publications of its researchers in the field of bioinformatics"

Taking advantage of his stay in Murcia, the researcher Dr. Levent Cavas, today offered the conference 'Biotechnological perspectives on evaluation of invasive marine seaweeds', in which he has shown the main lines of research.

For Cavas, the choice of the Catholic University of Murcia for this project was motivated "by the publications of its researchers in the field of bioinformatics, I am very happy to work with Horacio Pérez and his team".

Horacio himself summarized the role of the UCAM in this research: "In Turkey the peptides are being extracted and characterized and we, using our computational tools, are trying to predict in which diseases these peptides could be applied".

In addition, he stressed that the results of this work could lead to another project in Spain: "Being an invasive species is possible a parallel to what is happening in the Mar Menor." We want to see if everything that is being done in Turkey could move to the Region of Murcia. "

Source: UCAM