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

Thale, I., Massa, J., Naß, E., Vinnenberg, L., Todesca, L. M., Budde, T., Maisuls, I., Strassert, C. A., Koch, O.,  Schwab, A., Wünsch, B., Visualization of KCa3.1 Channels in Tumor Cells by Optimized Senicapoc-Bodipy Conjugates, ACS Pharmacol. Transl. Sci. 2025, 8, 3371–3388.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsptsci.5c00510