Main research interests & Expertise
MAIN AREAS OF RESEARCH:
- Crystal engineering & Supramolecular Chemistry
- Polymorphs, co-crystals and other multicompenent crystal forms
- Metallodrugs and metallopharmaceuticals
- BioMOFs
- Antibiotic Coordination Frameworks (ACFs)
- Mechanochemistry
AREAS OF EXPERTISE:
Polymorphic screening; Design of multicomponent crystal forms and their solubility; Metallodrugs and metallopharmaceuticals; BioMOFs; Mechanochemistry; X-ray diffraction techniques; Crystallography
- Crystal engineering & Supramolecular Chemistry
- Polymorphs, co-crystals and other multicompenent crystal forms
- Metallodrugs and metallopharmaceuticals
- BioMOFs
- Antibiotic Coordination Frameworks (ACFs)
- Mechanochemistry
AREAS OF EXPERTISE:
Polymorphic screening; Design of multicomponent crystal forms and their solubility; Metallodrugs and metallopharmaceuticals; BioMOFs; Mechanochemistry; X-ray diffraction techniques; Crystallography
Crystal engineering: polymorphs and co-crystals
|
|
Crystal engineering, the rational design of functional molecular solids, may be defined as the understanding of intermolecular interactions in the context of crystal packing and the use of such interactions in the design of new solids with the desired physical and chemical properties.
It is relevant in a very wide range of areas, and it has gained a particular interest in the pharmaceutical field where the development of new crystal forms of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) has attracted much attention over the last years. The importance of developing new forms is directly related with their different physicochemical properties and performance. Crystalline APIs can exist in a variety of forms, including polymorphs, solvates, hydrates, salts, co-crystals and adducts. Each of these forms displays unique physicochemical properties that can deeply influence solubility, dissolution profile, bioavailability, manufacturability, purification, temperature and humidity stability, hygroscopicity as well as other performance characteristics of the drug. |
Selected related publications:
- Martin Zabransky, Paula C. Alves, Catarina Bravo, M. Teresa Duarte, Vânia André*, From pipemidic acid molecular salts to metal complexes and BioMOFs using mechanochemistry, CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 1099-1109 (DOI: 10.1039/D0CE01533D)
- Vânia André*, Oleskii Shemchuk, Fabrizia Grepioni, Dario Braga, M. Teresa Duarte, Expanding the pool of multicomponent crystal forms of the antibiotic 4-aminosalicylic acid: the influence of crystallization conditions, Crystal Growth & Design, 2017, 17(2), 6417-6425 (DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01075)
- Karen J. Ardila-Fierro, Vânia André, Davin Tan, M. Teresa Duarte, Robert W. Lancaster, Panagiotis G. Karamertzanis, Tomislav Friscic, Molecular recognition of steroids in the solid state: stark differences in cocrystallization of β-estradiol and estrone, Crystal Growth & Design, 2015, 15(3), 1492–1501 (DOI: 10.1021/cg501865h)
- Vânia André, Luís Cunha-Silva, Pedro Paulo Santos, José Empis, M. Teresa Duarte, A new hydrated crystalline form of perindopril erbumine, methods for its preparation and its use in pharmaceutical preparations, 2012, WO2012044189-A1; PT105315-A1.
- Chinmay Maheshwari, Vânia André, Sreenivas Reddy, Lilly Roy,Teresa Duarte, Naír Rodríguez-Hornedo, Tailoring Aqueous Solubility of a Highly Soluble Compound via Co-crystallization: Effect of Coformer Ionization, pHmax, and Solute-Solvent Interactions, CrystEngComm, 2012, 14, 4801-4811 (doi: 10.1039/C2CE06615G).
- Vânia André, Auguste Fernandes, P. Paulo Santos, M. Teresa Duarte, On the track of new multicomponent gabapentin crystal forms: synthon competition and pH stability, Crystal Growth & Design, 2011, 11, 2325–2334 (doi: 10.1021/cg200008z).
- Vânia André, Dario Braga, Fabrizia Grepioni, M. Teresa Duarte, Crystal forms of the antibiotic 4-aminosalicylic acid: solvates and molecular salts with dioxane, morpholine and piperazine, Crystal Growth and Design, 2009, 9, 5108-5116 (doi: 10.1021/cg900495s).
Metallodrugs and metallopharmaceuticals
|
API metal complexes - metallopharmaceuticals - are another recent
pathway for the development of improved crystal forms and precursors to new
bio-inspired materials, in which the pharmacological activity of the API may be
improved by changing its properties and/or by taking advantage of the metal
benefits.
Metallodrugs, metal complexes in which the metal is the pharmacollogically active site, have also been extensively studied over the last years. A special emphasis has been given to the discovery of more efficient synthetic methods of these compounds, and mechanochemistry has shown to have many advantages over the traditional synthesis. |
Selected related publications:
- Vânia André, Andrew Hardeman, Ivan Halasz, Robin S. Stein, Graham J. Jackson, David G. Reid, Melinda J. Duer, Caroline Curfs, M. Teresa Duarte , Tomislav Friščić, Mechanosynthesis of the metallodrug bismuth subsalicylate from Bi2O3 and the first structural characterisation of a bismuth salicylate, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2011, 50(34), 7858-7861 (doi: 10.1002/anie.201103171).
- Dario Braga, Fabrizia Grepioni, Vânia André, M. Teresa Duarte, Drug-containing coordination and hydrogen bonding networks obtained mechanochemically, CrystEngComm, 2009, 11, 2618 – 2621 (doi: 10.1039/B913433F).
BioMOFs and ACFs
|
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are among the most exciting, high-profile developments in nanotechnology in the last ten years due to their versatility and wide range of applications. However only very recently their application has become across biology and medicine.The interplay between metal connectivity, and the denticity and geometry of the ligand determines the framework structure and tunes the pore size, making MOFs suitable candidates in applications of drug storage and delivery. The ability to engineer controlled localized delivery of drugs might both contribute to the efficiency of the treatment and reduce side effects, a major challenge in the new family of "bio-inspired" metal organic frameworks, BioMOFs. More recently, I have been employing the principles of BioMOFs to develop metal-organic frameworks using currently available antibiotics as ligands (ACFs) to enhance the antibacterial activity of the compounds. |
Selected related publications:
- Juliana Mota, Catarina Bravo, Catarina Santos, Paula C. Alves, Patrícia Rijo, Alexandra M. Antunes, Liliana Grenho, M. Helena Fernandes, Marta M. Alves, Vânia André*, Eco-friendly fabricated multibioactive Ca(II)-antibiotic coordination framework coating on zinc towards improved bone tissue regeneration, Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, 2023, 221, 113008 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2022.113008)
- Paula C. Alves, Patrícia Rijo, Catarina Bravo, Alexandra M.M. Antunes, Vânia André*, Bioactivity of isostructural hydrogen bonding frameworks built from pipemidic acid metal complexes, Molecules, 2020, 25, 2374 (DOI: 10.3390/molecules25102374)
- Catarina Bravo, Filipa Galego, Vânia André*, Hydrogen bonding networks of Nalidixic acid-Copper(II) complexes, CrystEngComm, 2019, 21, 7199-7203 (DOI: 10.1039/C9CE01057B) – Part of the themed collection: 1st International Conference on Noncovalent Interactions
- Vânia André,* André Silva, Auguste Fernandes, Raquel Frade, Patrícia Rijo, Catarina Garcia, Alexandra M. M. Antunes, João Rocha, M. Teresa Duarte, Mg and Mn BioMOFs with nalidixic acid: solubility boosters and effective bactericidal compounds, ACS Applied Bio Materials, 2019, 2(6), 2347-2354 (DOI: 10.1021/acsabm.9b00046)
- Vânia André*, Filipa Galego, Marta Martins, Mechanochemical assembly of nalidixic acid bio-inspired metal-organic compounds and complexes towards improved solubility, Crystal Growth & Design, 2018, 18(4), 2067-2081 (DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01523)
- Vânia André, Sílvia Quaresma, Bio-inspired metalorganic frameworks in the pharmaceutical world: a brief review, 2016, Metal-Organic Frameworks, ISBN 978-953-51-4811-1, InTech
Mechanochemistry
Mechanochemistry is a versatile environment-friendly synthetic technique with a very wide scope of applications, that has proved to promote, promptly and quantitatively, reactions between solids, with either no added solvent (neat grinding) or only using catalytic amounts of solvent (liquid-assisted grinding, LAG) or even also catalytic amounts of an ionic salt (ion- and liquid-assisted grinding, ILAG).In particular, it has been successfully used in supramolecular chemistry to obtain multicomponent molecular crystals (such as co-crystals and molecular salts), but also in coordination chemistry for the efficient and "clean" synthesis of metallodrugs, metallopharmaceuticals, and BioMOFs, for example.
Selected related publications:
- Vânia André, Andrew Hardeman, Ivan Halasz, Robin S. Stein, Graham J. Jackson, David G. Reid, Melinda J. Duer, Caroline Curfs, M. Teresa Duarte , Tomislav Friščić, Mechanosynthesis of the metallodrug bismuth subsalicylate from Bi2O3 and the first structural characterisation of a bismuth salicylate, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2011, 50(34), 7858-7861 (doi: 10.1002/anie.201103171).
- Sílvia Quaresma, Vânia André, Alexandra Antunes, Luís Cunha-Silva, M. Teresa Duarte, Gabapentin coordination networks obtained by mechanochemistry: improved precursors to new bio-inspired materials for drug delivery and imaging, Crystal Growth & Design, 2013, 13 (11), 5007–5017 (DOI: 10.1021/cg401187x).
- José G. Hernández, Ivan Halasz, Deborah Crawford, Martin Krupicka, Matej Baláž, Vânia André*, Liana Vella-Zarb, Allan Niidu, Felipe García, Lucia Maini, Evelina Colacino, European Research in Focus: Mechanochemistry for Sustainable Industry (COST Action MechSustInd), European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2020, 8-9 (DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.201901718)
- Vânia André*, M. Teresa Duarte, Clara S. B. Gomes, Mafalda C. Sarraguça, Mechanochemistry in Portugal - A Step towards Sustainable Chemical Synthesis, Molecules, 2022, 27(1), 241 (DOI: 10.3390/molecules27010241)
Former research interests
Crystal growth "on the rocks"
Crystal growth can be promoted by heterogeneous nucleation, exploring the method "On the Rocks".
In this method, a rock (or a shell) is used to promote heterogeneous nucleation from a homogeneous solution of inorganic salts.
Coloured crystals may be synthesized by the use of food colorants.
Selected related publications:
- Clementina Teixeira, Vânia André, Sílvia Chaves, Hermínio Diogo, Nuno Lourenço, Filipe Menezes, Água quase tudo... e cloreto de sódio: purificação do cloreto de sódio, Revista da Sociedade Portuguesa de Química, 2007, 106, 18-29.
- Clementina Teixeira, Vânia André, Nuno Lourenço, Maria José Rodrigues, Crescimento de cristais por nucleação heterogénea: “on the rocks” revisited, Ciência e Tecnologia dos Materiais, 2007, 19(1/2), 66-77.
