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Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund
CET provides support with patent applications

Prof. Max Hansmann Receives a Proof-of-Concept Grant

Portrait von Prof. Hansmann © Bettina Engel-Albustin
The European Research Council (ERC) has selected Prof. Max Hansmann from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology for a Proof of Concept Grant. In his project, “SPIROPENT,” he will develop new three-dimensional building blocks for pharmaceutical applications. The grant, in the amount of 150,000 euros, is intended to help translate ideas from ERC projects into practical applications. The CET provided support in the lead-up to the project through technology field analyses and its IP expertise.

Drugs often consist of flat, two-dimensional building blocks of organic chemistry, which are usually linked together via a carbon-carbon bond (C‒C) or a carbon-nitrogen bond (C‒N). Prof. Hansmann and his team are conducting research to make three-dimensional organic compounds usable for drug development as well. Such active ingredient structures have the advantage of improving pharmacokinetic properties—for example, they are more water-soluble or more metabolically stable. The binding pockets of proteins—which are often the targets of drugs in the body—can also bind spatially complex drug molecules effectively. There is therefore great interest in pharmaceutical chemistry in integrating new three-dimensional structural elements into active ingredients in order to develop even more effective drugs.

This is where the SPIROPENT project comes in: The researchers led by Prof. Hansmann will develop three-dimensional building blocks that can be incorporated into drug molecules. To do this, they are using so-called spiro[2,2]pentanes. These are organic compounds in which two rings, each consisting of three carbon atoms, are connected to one another via a shared central carbon atom. “We will analyze the synthesis of these new building blocks in detail and explore their use in pharmaceutical chemistry, with the goal of developing novel molecular building blocks that could be used in modern drugs,” says Hansmann.

CET Provides Support Through Technology Field Analyses and IP Expertise

As part of the project, the patent “Preparation and Use of Cumulative S-Ylides of the Structure R1R2S=CN2” will be specifically further developed to translate the research results into practical applications. The Center for Entrepreneurship & Transfer (CET) and PROvendis GmbH supported the grant application through technology field analyses and their IP expertise. In addition, the CET maintained close communication with the Research Funding Division, which, among other things, coordinated the collaboration among the various partners.

About the Individual

Prof. Max Hansmann has been a professor of organic chemistry at the department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at TU Dortmund University since 2023. In 2019, he accepted a position as a junior professor on the tenure track at TU Dortmund University and has led an Emmy Noether Early-Career Research Group since 2020. In 2022, he received an ERC Starting Grant for the CC-CHARGED project, in which he is researching fundamentally new classes of compounds in organic chemistry.