Dr. Laurent Provins, UCB Pharma, Brussels, Belgium, will be President of the Société Royale de Chimie (SRC, Belgian-Walloon Royal Society of Chemistry) from January 2020 to December 2021. He succeeds Professor Benoît Champagne from the University of Namur, Belgium.

 

Laurent Provins studied chemistry and received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry in 1998 from the University of Namur, Belgium, under the supervision of Alain Krief. After a postdoctoral stay from 1998 to 1999 at Osaka University, Japan, with Shun-Ichi Murahashi, he joined UCB Pharma in Belgium as a Research Scientist. Currently, he is Director for Medicinal Chemistry there.

Laurent Provins has contributed as a medicinal chemist and preclinical project leader to a variety of research projects from the hit-to-lead phase to early development in the fields of respiratory disorders, inflammation, and neurology. He has identified and progressed multiple preclinical and clinical candidates. He is co-inventor of 16 patent applications and co-author of more than 40 papers and book chapters.

Since 2013, he also serves as President of the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the SRC and as Council Member of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC).

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Selected Publications

• A. Hall, L. Provins, A. Valade, Novel Strategies to activate the Dopamine D₁ receptor: Recent Advances in Orthosteric Agonism and Positive Allosteric Modulation, J. Med. Chem. 2019, 62, 128–140. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.8b01767
• J. Mercier, L. Provins, A. Valade, Discovery and development of SV2A PET Tracers: Potential for imaging synaptic density and clinical applications, Drug Discovery Today: Technologies 2017, 25, 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ddtec.2017.11.003
• J. Mercier, L. Provins, J. Hannestad, Progress and challenges in the development of PET ligands to aid CNS drug discovery, in Comprehensive Medicinal Chemistry III – Section 7 (Ed.: A. Hall, Elsevier, The Netherlands 2017, 7.02, 20–64.
• L. Provins, E. Jnoff, C. Genicot, Back-up Strategies in Drug Discovery: what, how and when, Drug Discovery Today 2014, 19, 1808–1811. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2014.07.001
• J. Mercier, L. Archen, V. Bollu, S. Carré, Y. Evrard, E. Jnoff, B. Kenda, B. Lallemand, P. Michel, F. Montel, F. Moureau, N. Price, Y. Quesnel, X. Sauvage, A. Valade, L. Provins, Discovery of heterocyclic non-acetamide SV2A ligands with single-digit nanomolar potency : opening avenues towards the first SV2A PET ligands, ChemMedChem 2014, 9, 693–698. https://doi.org/10.1002/cmdc.201300482
• L. Provins, F. Denonne, S. Célanire, B. Christophe, S. Defays, C. Delaunoy, M.-L. Delporte, T. Demaude, V. Durieu, M. Gillard, D. Hubert, Y. Lamberty, G. Lorent, A. Valade, A. Vanbellinghen, N. Van houtvin, Lead Optimization of thiazolo[5,4-c]piperidines: 3-Cyclobutoxy linker as a key spacer for H₃R inverse agonists, ChemMedChem 2012, 7, 2087–2092. https://doi.org/10.1002/cmdc.201200406