Analytical Approaches in Alzheimer's Disease Drug Discovery

Vincenza Andrisano

Department for Life Quality Studies, Rimini Campus, University of Bologna, Italy

Vincenza Andrisano received her Doctorate Degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Bologna (Italy) and a 2 years post-lauream Diploma from Scuola di specializzazione in Scienze e Tecnologie Cosmetiche Università di Ferrara (Italy). As part of her postdoctoral training, she spent two years as a research assistant at the Sydney University Australia (Department of Biochemistry), researching on the enzymatic properties of new mechanism based substrates and inhibitors for dihydrofolate reductase in the search of anticancer drugs (1987-88).

Since1998 to 2012 she has been associate professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Bologna and carried out her research at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has been visiting professor at McGill University, Division de Pharmacocinétique, Department D'Oncologie, Montréal (Canada) (1995) (stereoselective interaction between drug-target protein by biochromatography) and at the Department of Pharmacology Georgetown University Medical Center Washington DC (USA) (2000)(enzyme immobilization for the development of glyceraldheyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase inhibitors in the search of anti-tripanosomial drugs).
Since 2012 she is full professor in medicinal chemistry at the Department for the Life Quality Studies, Rimini Campus, University of Bologna.
She has published more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals (HI=35) and a similar number of contributions in conference proceedings. She delivered lectures in several international symposia.

Since 2005 she is the scientific coordinator of local research programs (RFO) financed by the University of Bologna ‘Metodologie avanzate per l'analisi di farmaci e composti biologicamente attivi'. Since 2003 she partecipated to the MIUR supported FIRB project (FIRB2003, RBNE03FH5Y, ‘Sviluppo di metodologie innovative per l'identificazione e la sintesi di nuove molecole a scopo terapeutico: applicazioni nel campo della malattia di Alzheimer'). In 2007-11, she coordinates a young scientists research project financed by the the University of Bologna  (p53 e patologie non neoplastiche nell'anziano: uno studio multidisciplinare sul ruolo del polimorfismo al codone 72 del gene TP53).
In  2008-11, she is the coordinator of the italian  unit of the european FP7 reasearch project ‘BISNES: Bio-Inspired Self-assembled Nano-Enabled Surfaces' in the call NMP-2007-1.1-1 “Nano-scale mechanisms of bio/non-bio interactions” NMP-2007-1.1-2 “Self-assembling and self-organisation”.

She is coordinator of the University of Bologna Unit for PRIN 2007 and PRIN 2099: ‘Metodologie analitiche avanzate nelle ricerca e sviluppo di farmaci'.
Since 2008, she has been the Director of the Summer School on Pharmaceutical Analysis SSPA (http://www.scpaweb.org/), sponsored by the Divisione di Chimica Farmaceutica (SCI) and the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) . 

VA's present research covers four main lines: (i) structural characterization of protein targets (i.e. amyloid peptides) and candidate leads (circular dicroism in solution, HPLC-MS),for the development of new drugs for the treatment of degenerative diseases (Alzheimer's disease and cancer) : enzyme kinetics, determination of mechanism of action of new potential acetylcholinesterase, beta-secretase, Glicogeno Synthase Kinase 3 beta inhibitors with dual function, inhibition studies of b-amyloid fibril formation by circular dichroism, fluorescence spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (ii) development of analytical methodologies in the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new bioactive compounds (iii) characterization of the ligand/target peptide/protein/enzyme interactions (classical and multiwells spectroscopic kinetic methods, biochromatography, analysis through optical biosensor, HPLC-MS) (iv) Immobilisation of target enzymes on solid matrices which are then inserted in fluidic and chromatographic systems for binding studies.

1. Adaptive interferometry of protein on a BioCD.     Peng Leilei; Varma Manoj M; Cho Wonryeon; Regnier Fred E; Nolte David D    Applied optics  (2007),  46(22),  5384-95.