Stephane Betzi

Postdoctoral Fellow

Molecular Modelling, Biochemistry, Protein Chemistry

Research

I joined in Dr. Schonbrunn's lab in November 2008 and I participate in several of his drug discovery projects. My main poject is the developement of inhibitors of the Cyclin Dependant protein Kinase (CDK2).

My research focuses on molecular modelling derived form the lab structural biology and SAR (Structural Activity Relatioship) programs.

I also take part in the structural biology projects where I perform the refinement of protein structures and some biochemistry and molecular biololgy experiments.

Education

2008 PHD in Structural Biology, Bioinformatics and Genomic (Marseille Provence University U1 - France). TItle: "Protein Protein Interaction Inhibition: Application to antiviral design".

2004 DEA (one year before PhD) : Structural Biology, Bioinformatics and Genomic - option Structural Biology (Marseille Provence University U1 - France)

2003 Master degree : Biochemistry option structural Biology (Marseille Provence University U1 - France)

Publications

Authors Title Pubmed ID: number
8. El Turk F, Fauvet B, Ouertatani-Sakouhi H, Lugari A, Betzi S, Roche P, Morelli X, Lashuel HA. An integrative in silico methodology for the identification of modulators of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) tautomerase activity. Bioorg Med Chem. Pubmed ID: 20639113
7. Lugari A, Betzi S, Decroly E, Bonnaud E, Hermant A, Guillemot JC, Debarnot C, Borg JP, Bouvet M, Canard B, Morelli X, Lécine P. Molecular mapping of the RNA Cap 2'-O-methyltransferase activation interface between severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus nsp10 and nsp16. J Biol Chem. 2010 Pubmed ID: 20699222
6. Berndt N, Yang H, Trinczek B, Betzi S, Zhang Z, Wu B, Lawrence NJ, Pellecchia M, Schönbrunn E, Cheng JQ, Sebti SM. The Akt activation inhibitor TCN-P inhibits Akt phosphorylation by binding to the PH domain of Akt and blocking its recruitment to the plasma membrane. Cell Death Differ. 2010 May 21. Pubmed ID: 20489726
5. Han H, Yang Y, Olesen SH, Becker A, Betzi S, Schonbrunn E. The Fungal Product Terreic Acid is a Covalent Inhibitor of the Bacterial Cell Wall Biosynthetic Enzyme UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 1-carboxyvinyltransferase (MurA). Biochemistry. 2010 Apr 14. Pubmed ID: 20392080
4. Betzi, S., Guerlesquin, F. and Morelli, X. Protein Protein Interaction Inhibition (2P2I):Less and Less Undruggable Targets. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen 2009 Pubmed ID: 20025563
3. Betzi S, Eydoux C, Bussetta C, Blemont M, Leyssen P, Debarnot C, Ben-Rahou M, Haiech J, Hibert M, Gueritte F, Grierson DS, Romette JL, Guillemot JC, Neyts J, Alvarez K, Morelli X, Dutartre H, Canard B.
Identification of allosteric inhibitors blocking the hepatitis C virus polymerase NS5B in the RNA synthesis initiation step.
Antiviral Res. 2009 Pubmed ID: 19589358
2. Betzi S, Restouin A, Opi S, Arold ST, Parrot I, Guerlesquin F, Morelli X, Collette Y. Protein protein interaction inhibition (2P2I) combining high throughput and virtual screening: Application to the HIV-1 Nef protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007 Pubmed ID: 18042718
1. Betzi, S., Suhre, K., Chetrit, B., Guerlesquin, F., Morelli, X. GFscore: A General Non-Linear Consensus Scoring Function for High-Throughput Docking.
Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 2006 Pubmed ID: 16859302

Resume

Professional Skills

Molecular modelling: Pymol, Sybyl (Tripos), Lithium (Tripos), MOE (Chemical Computing Group Inc.), Maestro (Shrodinger)

Structure-Based drug design: Docking and High Throughput docking (FlexX, Glide, Surflex, CScore, GFscore)

Ligand-Based drug design: QSAR, CoMFA

Structural Biology and Biochemistry : Refinement of Xray protein structures (CNS). Proteins sample preparation for Xray and NMR. Protein purifications. Microcalorimetry (ITC).

Operating systems: Windows, Linux.

Webdesign: HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Photoshop

Professional Experience

2008 to 2010 Postdoctorate Position, Dr E. Schonbrunn Laboratory Moffitt Cancer Research

2007 to 2008 ATER (Assistant teacher) Marseille Provence University U1 ("Université de Provence") in biochemistry . Research at NMR group, IMR laboratory CNRS France

2005 to 2007

Research: PhD in Structural Biology, Bioinformatics and Genomic (Marseille Provence University U1 - France). Title: "Protein Protein Interaction Inhibition: Application to antiviral design".

Directors: Xavier MORELLI and Françoise GUERLESQUIN (IMR laboratory, CNRS France)

Teaching: Lecturer at Marseille Provence University U1 ("Université de Provence"): Biochemistry 100 hours a year, Docking and virtual screening 16 hours a year

Webdesign and Webmaster: Schonbrunn Laboratory: http://labpages.moffitt.org/schonbrunne/

2004 6 months training period : NMR group, BIP laboratory CNRS France (Structure-Based Drug Design of Nef/SH3 protein/protein interaction using NMR for validation)

2003 1 month training period : NMR group, BIP laboratory CNRS France

Workshops and trainings

FlexX Docking Workshop 10 to 11 November 2006 Bonn Germany

Designing Active Ligands with QSAR/CoMFA 16 November 2005 Tripos Paris

Posters and Congres

October 2007 FJC (Forum Jeunes Chercheurs) Les Embiez France - Oral presentation

March 2005 Structure-Based Drug Design - Cambridge Healthtech Institute 2005 Boston US

April 2005 GERM (Groupement français d'Etudes de Résonance Magnétique) Carry-le-Rouet France

May 2005 GGMM (Groupe de Graphisme et Modélisation Moléculaire) Les Embiez France