6-Diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON, 1) is a non-standard amino acid with proven antitumor activity found in soil bacteria of the genus Streptomyces. However, due to the considerable systemic toxicity manifested mainly in the gastrointestinal tract, DON alone is not a suitable clinical candidate for the treatment of cancer. One of the ways to solve the problem of its toxicity is the reversible structural modification of this molecule by protecting both its amino group and carboxyl functional group, by preparing the so-called prodrug of DON. The prepared prodrug may suitably alter the distribution of DON in the body and at the same time increase its permeability to brain tissue. Due to this structural modification, its side effects can be eliminated and a substance for the treatment of brain tumors, such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), can potentially be formed. In my dissertation, five strategies for the specific delivery of DON to the brain using different types of its prodrugs are discussed. The new prodrugs are designed to be either capable of spontaneous penetration across the blood-brain barrier or of being a substrate for one of its influx transporters. At the same time, these prodrugs should be stable in other metabolically active organs and blood plasma in order to sufficiently reduce the...

No / Martensitic transformations are of considerable technological importance, a particularly promising application being the possibility of using martensitic materials, possibly proteins, as tiny machines. For organic crystals, however, a molecular level understanding of such transformations is lacking. We have studied a martensitic-type transformation in crystals of the amino acid DL-norleucine using molecular dynamics simulation. The crystal structures of DL-norleucine comprise stacks of bilayers (formed as a result of strong hydrogen bonding) that translate relative to each other on transformation. The simulations reveal that the transformation occurs by concerted molecular displacements involving entire bilayers rather than on a molecule-by-molecule basis. These observations can be rationalized on the basis that at sufficiently high excess temperatures, the free energy barriers to concerted molecular displacements can be overcome by the available thermal energy. Furthermore, in displacive transformations, the molecular displacements can occur by the propagation of a displacement wave (akin to a kink in a carpet), which requires the molecules to overcome only a local barrier. Concerted molecular displacements are therefore considered to be a significant feature of all displacive transformations. This finding is expected to be of value toward developing strategies for controlling or modulating martensitic-type transformations.