Most of scientific activity during the last months of 2021 has been devoted to solving and refining structures of ClassII FBPases of two important pathogens, Francisella tularensis and Staphylococcus aureus. The structures have been solved and refined and two manuscripts are in preparation to present and discuss these structures in the context of our work on ClassII FBPases of important pathogens as promising targets for drug design.

In July 2021, I attended a very important remote crystallographic Workshop at the Advanced Photon Source (www.ccp4.ac.uk/schools/APS-2021.) This prompted the writing of an essay for Acta Crystallographic D during the months of August-September that has recently been accepted for publication (see Essays).

In addition, I had made an earlier commitment to attend the European Societies of Medicine 2021 Congress in Vienna (ESMED2021) in November. However, the issues of COVID-19 made it more complicated than I expected attending and therefore I decided to present my lecture in a video format. I thought that the Congress would be a good forum to present the latest developments of drug discovery to the Medical Community. The Abstract of this presentation can be found here ( PDF ) and further details, including the power point ( PDF ) and the video of the entire presentation, can be found in the Efficiency-Based Drug Discovery tab.

There was also the teaching of three lectures for the graduate students at UIC on the basics of Protein Crystallography right before Thanksgiving.