Erik Chorell

I have a background in organic chemistry/medicinal chemistry with a post doc in molecular biology and a post doc in biophysical chemistry. Throughout my background I have focused on the development of small bioactive molecules, often linked to new therapeutic strategies. I am now associate professor and docent at Umeå University with the following main areas:

My research focuses primarily on developing small molecules that can affect biological systems linked primarily to cancer. We use these molecules both to study the biological systems from a basic research perspective, but they are also interesting as starting points for drug development. In addition to small molecules, we also use other strategies such as oligonucleotides to affect biological systems. A major focus area in the lab is G-quadruplex DNA structures and how our strategies can be used to bind these DNA structures and thereby influence gene expression of proteins linked to diseases such as cancer. Read more about the research in my lab.

I teach organic chemistry/pharmaceutical chemistry/chemical biology and am also responsible for the bachelor of science programme in Life Science. The programme combines courses in chemistry and molecular biology and is one of the only life-science programmes in Sweden that also is given in english. Life science is an area that is developing very strongly with both many new companies and strong research. Sweden also has a national life science strategy with the goal of being a leading life-science nation, so it is very inspirational to lead an education program in this particular area!

In addition to research and teaching, I am also responsible for the UmU node of the Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS). CBCS is a national infrastructure that is also part of  SciLifeLab with the goal of helping researchers identify and develop bioactive small molecules. Researchers searching for the infrastructure often have a biological process or phenotype they are interested in. We help the researchers develop test systems (assays), and screen our libraries of small molecules (we have over 200 000 small molecules in total). We can also further develop identified molecules as well as run projects that do not include screening, see more on CBCS:s website. The infrastructure is financed by the host universities, SciLifeLab and from 2022 also by the Swedish Research Council.