Current Members
Jespers Group / University of Groningen
Permanent laboratory staff
Ilias Patmanidis, PhD
Ilias obtained his BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Democritus University of Thrace and his MSc in Bioinformatics and Data Analysis at the University of Geneva. During his PhD in Computational Chemistry at the University of Groningen, he studied the self-assembly of small dyes and the use of coarse-grained methods for multi-scale modelling of biomolecular systems. After his PhD, he worked as a researcher at the Aarhus University and the University of Oldenburg. In our lab, he is working as a research technician for Computer Aided Drug Design.
Post-Docs
Gülbahar Bozan, MSc
Gülbahar earned both BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry from Istanbul Technical University, with stays at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology and the University of Tartu, where she was involved several projects regarding the molecular design of potential drug candidates for different biological targets. In 2021, she started her doctoral studies at the University of Regensburg, focusing on pericyclic reactions in open-shell systems within the field of physical organic chemistry. Since 2024 she works in our laboratories on the optimization of light-responsive molecules.
PhD students
Donald J.M. van Pinxteren, MSc
Donald obtained his BSc and MSc in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University. During his MSc, he first conducted research on the use of Dynamic Pharmacophores for QSAR and Proteochemometric models in the Computational Drug Discovery research group of the LACDR. Secondly, he conducted research for MODSIM Pharma, where he combined ligand-based screening methods and FEP methods to identify and optimize ligands for the CCR2 receptor. He joined our lab in April 2025, working on Active Learning for binding pocket exploration in docking and FEP methods.
Kian Noorman van der Dussen, MSc
Kian obtained a BSc degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University. He performed his first MSc research project at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research and his second at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry. There, he developed inhibitors for chemokine receptors and kinases respectively, before obtaining his MSc degree (cum laude). He joined our lab in April 2025, working on the identification and synthesis of ligands for mutated G-proteins.
Computational Drug Discovery Group / Leiden University
David Araripe, MSc
David earned a BSc in Biotechnology from the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. He subsequently completed a two-year Erasmus+ MSc program, attending universities in Groningen and Uppsala, and conducted his thesis research at the University of Cambridge. In September 2021, David started his PhD as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Early Stage Researcher, and his research comprises identification of biological targets for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, QSAR-based bioactivity prediction, and free energy estimation.
Linde Schoenmaker, MSc
After obtaining a BCs and MSc degree in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University, Linde is currently doing a PhD in the field of computational drug discovery in the labs of prof. van Westen and dr. Jespers. She is working on a thesis on the subject of predicting physiological effects based on chemical characteristics. On this topic she has shown that transformer models can correct invalid SMILES and created a code base for adding chemical intermediates to difficult edges in free energy calculations.
Remco van den Broek, MSc
Remco obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University, including a stay at Uppsala University. During his MSc, his research involved the development of an automated platform for preparing membrane proteins for Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, and the translation of MD simulations into protein descriptors for Machine Learning predictions. In June 2023, he started his PhD under Gerard van Westen and Willem Jespers, where he works on the practical application of de novo drug design within early-stage drug discovery.
Daan Jiskoot, MSc
Daan completed his BSc and MSc degrees in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University, including a six-month research stay at the University of California, Irvine. During his MSc, he focused on generating chemical intermediates to improve the convergence of challenging free energy perturbations. In May 2024, he began his PhD at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), working in collaboration with the labs of Prof. van Westen, Prof. Peijnenburg and Dr. Jespers. His research focuses on protein-ligand interactions in the context of endocrine disruption.
Mark Fonteyne, MSc
After obtaining his BSc in Bio-Pharmaceutical sciences at Leiden University, Mark went to Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) to obtain his MSc in Pharmacy. Mark is currently doing a PhD at the Green Light group within the department of Surgery (LUMC), and in close collaboration with the LACDR. Under supervision of Prof. Vahrmeijer, Prof. van Westen, and Dr. Jespers, he is working on strategies to accurately and efficiently design novel peptides that can be used for fluorescent-guided surgery.
Mobley Group / University of California Irvine
Aakankschit (AK) Nandkeolyar, MSc
Aakankschit (AK) Nandkeolyar graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He completed an internship with the automation team at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where he found an interest in the pharmaceutical sciences. In 2021, he joined the Mobley Lab at UCI to pursue a PhD in pharmaceutical science. AK's current research focusses on integrating Bayesian Inference based methods into virtual screening and improving free energy estimates. He is jointly supervised by prof. Mobley and dr. Jespers.