Dr. Valentina Villamil (Marie Curie-Skłodowska Fellow)
Prof. Emilia Caselli (Associate Professor)
Professor Emilia Caselli is an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE). Her academic background and teaching activities are firmly rooted in Organic Chemistry, particularly within pharmaceutical and biologically oriented chemistry.
Her research focuses on the design, synthesis, and characterization of bioactive organic molecules, with special emphasis on compounds targeting antimicrobial resistance. She has worked extensively on enzyme inhibitors, including β-lactamase inhibitors, and on the development of novel molecules with potential therapeutic applications.
Professor Caselli has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications in international journals, contributing to the field of medicinal and organic chemistry. Her work integrates synthetic organic chemistry with biological evaluation, bridging chemistry and biomedical sciences.
In addition to her research, she is actively involved in teaching organic chemistry courses in life sciences and pharmacy programs, and participates in national and international research collaborations.
https://unimore.unifind.cineca.it/resource/person/65235
Prof. Fabio Prati (Full Professor)
Fabio Prati is a full professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), Department of Life Sciences.
At the beginning of his research, he has been interested in enzymatic catalysis applied to organic synthesis, aiming to enantioselective synthesis of biologically active heterocycles or their precursors. In this context he was able to obtain by hydrolase-catalyzed reactions enantiomerically pure form of aziridines bearing stereogenic nitrogen as unique asymmetric center. In collaboration with Prof H. Alper (Ottawa University – Canada) he was then interested in homogeneous catalysis, exploring the carbonylative ring expansion of aziridines to beta-lactam, where he highlighted scope and limitation of this method and described the total synthesis of the carbapenem antibiotic PS-5. He also faced the total enantioselective synthesis fungi metabolites by ring-closing metathesis, identifying new stereoselective methodologies by means of boronic esters.
In close collaboration with molecular biologists (Prof Brian Shoichet, University of California San Francisco), crystallographers and microbiologists (Prof R Bonomo, Case Western Reserve University – Cleveland), he developed the stereoselective synthesis of acylamido- and sulfonamido-boronic acids for the inhibition of beta-lactamases, bacterial enzymes responsible of the growing antibacterial resistance. He also applied highly efficient synthetic strategies, such as click chemistry (Copper-Catalyzed Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition) and multicomponent reactions, for the rapid generation structurally diverse boronic acids, obtaining several nM inhibitors of beta-lactamases, capable of restoring in vitro and in vivo the antibacterial activity of beta-lactam antibiotics.
He obtained several competitive grants from the Ministry of the University (Italy, PRIN, as participant or PI) and the National Institute of Health (USA, RO1 projects, nine four years grants as Co-PI and two as participant).