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Drugs with fewer side effects could soon be a reality thanks to Coventry University researcher
The project is funded by a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust
University news / Research news
Thursday 05 February 2026
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Future drugs could soon have fewer side effects thanks to research carried out by a Coventry University scientist.
Dr Giuseppe Deganutti has been awarded a Research Leadership Award by the Leverhulme Trust, which will fund a project in collaboration with University of Cambridge and Imperial College London which he hopes will pave the way to more effective and safer drugs in the future, meaning less adverse effects for patients.
He will use a computer simulation technique known as molecular dynamics to study how G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) – which are found on the surface of cells in the body and are targeted by most prescribed drugs – interact with the intracellular effector inside the cell.
It is the interaction between the two, combined with a drug or medicine, that results in different effects, some of which are desired and some that are not.
GPCRs are the target for most drugs that are approved and are very important for our body and our therapies but there are a lot of gaps in the knowledge of how they work.
Once a drug gets into the body and on the surface of the cell, the receptor changes shape and interacts with intracellular effectors. They do a lot of different things – some of these are good and some are bad, which lead to adverse effect of the drug instead of the desired effect.
The way receptors and intracellular effector interact at a molecular level is not very well known. This project will help us to understand how receptors activate the intracellular effectors to get good effects and bad effects.
Small chemical modifications in drugs can lead to huge, amplified effects inside the cells. Being able to link the structure modification you are creating on the molecule and the final effect in the cell is the sort of Holy Grail of pharmacology.
There are a lot of drugs on the market now for decades and many of them have adverse effects that are very strong. It would be nice to understand what the origins of these side effects are before trying to use the knowledge gathered to produce new drugs with improved efficacy and less side effects.
Dr Giuseppe Deganutti, Assistant Professor in Coventry University’s Research Centre for Discoveries in Life Sciences
Dr Deganutti says the use of his ad-hoc molecular dynamics method to study the complete mechanism of interaction between receptor and intracellular effectors is an “unprecedented approach” to examine “uncharted territory as almost nobody is trying to do what we are planning to do”.
Standard techniques are very good in explaining the structure of proteins but they do that in a static way. This is something that’s not natural because in our body every molecule is moving.
That's why I'm using molecular dynamics that can simulate the evolution of a molecule over time. Starting from a static structure you can see how it moves, changes shape and interacts with the other molecules over time.”
It's a great achievement to receive the Leverhulme Research Leadership Award and a game changer for my career path. It’s a very competitive award and makes me proud and more confident in my science, the impact it can have in the field, and what I can deliver.
Dr Giuseppe Deganutti
Find out more about research at Coventry University and the Leverhulme Trust.
