Lizi (Lance) Xia is a Ph.D. student at the Division of Medicinal Chemistry. Lance performs kinetic studies on Cannabinoid CB1 receptor, which is a potential target related to weight-control via lowering the concentration of plasma lipids and cholesterol.

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In China I was educated and trained as Medicinal chemist. I did my bachelor in pharmaceutical sciences and performed academic and industrial research in both chemistry and biology. In February 2011, I came to Leiden University to study science based business (SBB) and bio-pharmaceutical sciences (BFW). I found the research here is what I like most; therefore, I did a 9-month internship in organic synthesis, under the supervision of Mr. Guo and Dr. J. Brussee. I synthesized about 50 compounds and analyzed them for their Structure-kinetics and Structure-affinity Relationships on the Adenosine A _2A receptor.

Right after that, I did another 6-month internship in biochemistry under the supervision of Mr. Massink, Dr. Heitman and Prof. Dr. IJzerman, based on the latest crystal structure of the Adenosine A _2A receptor; its “Sodium Ion Pocket” was confirmed as a highly conserved allosteric site.

Unfortunately, after two years my Dutch is still poor, but luckily I can continue to do my PhD study in the same group in Leiden. Now with the founding of the “K4DD” consortium and together with partners from both academia and industry, I am allowed to do kinetic studies on Cannabinoid CB ₁ receptor, which is a potential target related to weight-control via lowering the concentration of plasma lipids and cholesterol. Next to the affinity and selectivity, the kinetic characteristics of small molecules as ligands for the Cannabinoid CB ₁ receptor will be defined via improved methods and technology in a high throughput fashion. In the end, I hope my in vitro discoveries can be translated to in vivo effects from intact cell to whole animal or human body.

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