Speakers

Prof. Stefano Alcaro

Stefano Alcaro is Full Professor in medicinal chemistry at the Department of Health Sciences, University “Magna Græcia” of Catanzaro (UMG), Italy. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in pharmaceutical chemistry and technology in 1990 and obtained a PhD in pharmacology later at Sapienza University of Rome. In 1994 he got a PostDoc position at the Columbia University, (NYC, USA) under the supervision of Prof. Still, and in 1996 he held the position of researcher at the University of Magna Græcia, where he established the Computational Chemistry Lab (CCLab). From 2002, he fulfilled the role of Associate Professor in medicinal chemistry at the UMG, until he was appointed as Full Professor in 2011. Prof. Alcaro is also the coordinator of the Doctoral Programme in Life Sciences at the same University, and president of the COST Action “MuTaLig CA15135”. His research topics focus on the development of molecular modeling tools aimed at discovering new drug candidates, in particular those endowed with anticancer, antiviral, and multitargeted activities. Up to 2022, Prof. Alcaro is (co)author of 258 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed international Journals, with an H-index equal to 47.

Prof. Francesco Ortuso

Francesco Ortuso is Full Professor in medicinal chemistry at the Department of Health Sciences, University “Magna Græcia” of Catanzaro (UMG), Italy. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in Pharmacy at the UMG in 1999. A year later, he moved to Columbus, Ohio (USA), where he worked under the supervision of Prof. Robert S. Coleman at the Ohio-State University, and in 2003 he joined Prof. Thierry Langer research group at Innsbruck University (Austria). He got a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences in 2005 and accomplished the School of Specialization in Hospital Pharmacy in 2006. He became Assistant Professor in medicinal chemistry in 2008, and then he was appointed as Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacobiological Sciences, UMG, in 2015. Since 2021 is Full Professor at the same University, in the Department of Health Sciences. In 2018, Prof. Ortuso was co-founder and CEO of the academic spin-off Net4Sciences. His research focuses on creating new algorithms to study biological systems interactions, such as those between a drug and its receptor, and the development of new anticancer, antiviral, antidepressive, antineurodegenerative, and antiinflammatory agents. He joined the Editorial Board of “Frontiers in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry” as reviewer editor in 2017 and he was Guest Editor of the Eur. J. Med. Chem. special issue on the “Multi-Target Drug Discovery: an opportunity for novel and repurposed bioactive compounds” in 2019. Prof. Ortuso is (co)author of 140 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed international journals, and 5 book chapters belonging to international academic books in the medicinal chemistry field, with an H-index, to date, equal to 37.

Prof. Simona Rapposelli

Simona Rapposelli is Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Pisa. She has more than 15 years of experience in research projects focused on the design and development of novel chemical entities for several diseases. In 2009 she was awarded “Farmindustria Award” by Farmindustria and SCI – Divisione Chimica Farmaceutica. Since 2010, Prof. Rapposelli has been independently initiating research projects, leading a MedChem team that is recognized for its multidisciplinary expertise spawned in the fields of drug discovery and other pharmaceutical sciences. The group led several projects for the development of novel chemical entities for neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, and hepatic diseases. It cooperates with several national and international research groups, spin-offs, and SMEs in the research of new lead compounds. The main research activity focuses on the design and synthesis of novel chemical compounds against complex diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. In 2019, she organized the first International Workshop Accelerating the Drug Discovery Process, bringing together academic research and industrial experience (ADDP, 2019). She is Associate Editor at Frontiers in Chemistry, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Frontiers in Oncology, Scientific Reports, and Section Board Member at MDPI-Molecules. She served as a selected reviewer for several research programs: the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the Croatian Science Foundation research, PRIN, and Futuro in Ricerca Projects (MIUR-Italy). Reviewer for different international scientific journals (JMedChem, Eur J Med Chem, Molecules, Antioxidants, Drug Design and Discovery, Bioorganic Chemistry, Bioorg. Med Chem, Oncogene, Medicinal Chemistry Research, RSC Advance, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry. Prof. Rapposelli is (co)author of over 115 publications in international journals with a high impact factor, 14 international patents, and 4 book chapters, with an H-index of 29 in 2022.

Dr. Alessio Ciulli

Alessio Ciulli holds the Personal Chair of Chemical Structural Biology at the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee. He is also the Founder and Director of the newly announced Dundee’s Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation (CeTPD). Dr. Ciulli’s laboratory has made significant contributions to the development of proteolysis-targeting chimeric molecules (PROTACs) as a viable strategy for targeted protein degradation. Amongst his most significant discoveries are the fragment-based design of ligands for the E3 ligase von Hippel-Lindau (VHL), and their use to design one of the first VHL-based PROTACs: the BET degrader MZ1. Dr Ciulli’s Lab later illuminated fundamental insights into PROTACs’ mechanism of action, solving the first crystal structure of a PROTAC ternary complex. Dr. Ciulli is the scientific founder of Amphista therapeutics, a company that develops new protein degradation platforms. Before joining Dundee, Dr. Ciulli was a group leader at the University of Cambridge, where he previously earned his PhD degree. Amongst his honors are the EFMC Prize for Young Medicinal Chemist in Academia, the RSC Capps Green Zomaya Award in medicinal computational chemistry, and recently the 2022 Prous Institute – Overton and Meyer Award for New Technologies in Drug Discovery. Up to date, Dr. Ciulli is (co)author of 115 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed international journals with an H-index equal to 40.

Prof. Beatrice Vallone

Beatrice Vallone is Full Professor in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Department of Biochemical Sciences “Alessandro Rossi Fanelli” of Sapienza University of Rome and head of the Sapienza Structural Biology Group. She graduated in Biology in 1987 and received a PhD in Biochemistry in 1991. From 1988 to 2004 she received several fellowships at Geneva University (CH) sponsored by EMBO- Dept. of Biochemistry (Prof.S.J. Edelstein), LMB-MRC, Cambridge (UK) sponsored by EMBO (Dr. K. Nagai), and by FEBS (Dr. G. Fermi), York University, Dept. of Biochemistry (UK) sponsored by FEBS (Prof. J. Tame) and again Cambridge University, Dept. of Biochemistry, (UK) sponsored by EMBO (Prof. B. Luisi). In 2000 she was appointed as Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, where she became Full Professor in 2009. In 2014/2015 she was Research Scholar at Columbia University (New York USA), where she returned as Visiting Professor in 2017 and present day. Prof. Vallone was awarded the Schaefer Research Scholarship at Columbia Medical Center in 2014 and the “Alexander Bodini” Research Fellowship at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia in 2016. She is the coordinator of several research grants and her main research interests cover the investigation of the mechanism of action of proteins by using protein crystallography and biochemical characterization, the structure-function relationship of enzymes and transporters, as well as their role within signalling networks that involves protein-protein recognition and complex formation. In this context, the main endeavor has been the determination of protein structures by protein crystallography and, more recently by single particle cryo-electron microscopy. Prof. Vallone is (co)author of 100 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed international journals with an H-index, in 2022, equal to 32.