1st Webinar on Marine Drugs - an Open Access Journal

Viruses, not only the bad ones

An Approach on Viruses by The International Summer School on Natural Products (ISSNP) 2020

Viruses have been regarded as a growing danger to humanity's health, and the current COVID-19 pandemic has further reinforced this thought. However, an increasing number of reports have demonstrated that viral weaponry can also be exploited for therapeutic applications. This consideration inspired the scientific committee of the event "Viruses not only the bad ones" to organize a series of webinars that will bring us on a journey through the world of viruses. This series will provide information about SARS-CoV-2 and other threatening viruses that could be responsible for new outbreaks, but will focus on the latest achievements in the application of viral technologies for the development of innovative therapeutic approaches.

Chair: Prof. Dr. Valeria Costantino; Prof. Dr. Giorgia Oliviero; Dr. Mattia Mori; Prof. Dr. Daniele Passarella

Date & Time: 10 JULY 2020 10:00 am (CEST)

Zoom ID: 844 8085 5034

Webinar Secretariat: marinedrugs.webinar@mdpi.com

The following experts will present and speak:

Prof. Dr. Vincenzo Cerullo

Centre for Drug Research (CDR), Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Vincenzo Cerullo is a professor of biological drug development and Head of the Drug Research Program, HiLIFE fellow, and co-leader of the Immunotherapy at Digital Precision Cancer Medicine Flagship (iCAN) at University of Helsinki. He is the scientific founder of VALO therapeutics. He has received several awards and raised more than 6 million EUR in research grants in the last five years, published more than 90 publications and 30 patents, he has been ranked by expertscape as N7 worldwide, N4 in Europe, and N1 in Finland in the field of oncolytic virotherapy.

Program

The webinar will start at 10:00 am (CEST) and last maximum 2 hours.

Presentation	Time
Welcome & Introduction	10:00 am (CEST)
Virus and application of viral technologies for the development of innovative therapeutic approaches.	10:05 am (CEST)
Q&A	11:00 am (CEST)

MDPI and Marine Drugs joined forces with the International Summer School on Natural Products (ISSNP) to organise a series of three webinars entitled “Viruses, not only the bad ones | An Approach on Viruses by the International Summer School on Natural Products (ISSNO) 2020”.

The main focus of the International Summer School on Natural Products (ISSNP) is on both established and emerging areas of research at the cutting-edge of organic chemistry inspired by natural products.

Chaired by Prof. Dr. Valeria Costantino, Prof. Dr. Giorgia Oliviero, Dr. Mattia Mori and Prof. Dr. Daniele Passarella, each webinar sees one speaker present and discuss their research. On Friday 10 July 2020, Prof. Dr. Orazia Taglialatela-Scafati, Editor-in-Chief of Marine Drugs introduced the webinar’s speaker: Prof. Dr. Vincenzo Cerullo from the University of Helsinki, Sweden. Prof. Dr. Cerullo gave a talk entitled “Dressing Viruses in Tumor’s Clothing: Cloning-Free Platforms to Trigger Tumor-Specific Immune Response”. This was followed by a Q&A session and discussion.

The webinar was offered via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below.

The second webinar of this series will be held on Friday 17 June 2020 at 10.00am (CEST). The expert researcher presenting will be Prof. Dr. Mark Brönstrup from Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research. Register for the webinar here: https://marinedrugs-2.sciforum.net/#webinar_registration

Special Issues in Marine Drugs

Topical Collection "International Summer School on Natural Products: The Contribution of Young Researchers to Marine Inspired Products"
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Giorgia Oliviero; Prof. Dr. Valeria Costantino; Prof. Dr. Daniele Passarella

The main focus of the International Summer School on Natural Products (ISSNP) is on both established and emerging areas of research at the cutting-edge of organic chemistry inspired by natural products.

The natural world is a source of biologically active molecules and an inspiration for researchers in different fields. Natural products are bioactive compounds synthesized by terrestrial and marine plants, micro-organisms, and animals. Interdisciplinarity involves the simple combination of several points of view to solve complex problems relating to the characterization of bioactive natural compounds, their biological evaluation, and the clarification of their mechanisms of action.

Accordingly, the aim of this Special Issue of Marine Drugs is to collect new discoveries in relation to bioactive molecules from marine-inspired compounds produced by isolation, semi-synthesis, and synthesis.

The biological activity of natural extracts or synthetic analogues without a proper chemical characterization will not be considered. Review articles in the field will also be evaluated.

The editors strongly encourage young scientists to publish their innovative research in this Special Issue.

Special Issue "Marine Antiviral Agents"
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Nathalie Bourgougnon
Accepting submissions until 10 August 2020

Special Issue "Marine Natural Products against Coronaviruses"
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Orazio Taglialatela-Scafati
Accepting submissions until 28 February 2021