Research
Department researchers carry out basic and applied (pre-industrial) research activities in the different fields of competence, mainly supported by private and public funding, from both national and EU origin.
The main research lines upon which the current activities are focused are:
i) naturally occurring biologically active compounds (pharma, nutraceuticals, food, cosmetics);
ii) neurosciences (drug design & development, brain drug delivery, neurobiology, neuropharmacology);
iii) chemotherapeutics (antibacterials, antifungals, antivirals, anticancer agents).
To date, 20 researchers from DSFS are cited in the AD Scientific Index 2023 (https://www.adscientificindex.com/top-100-scientist/?con=Europe)
PIANO OPERATIVO SALUTE - Traiettoria 4 (Biotecnologia, bioinformatica e sviluppo farmaceutico)
Tematica: Riposizionamento di farmaci per il trattamento di malattie rare del sistema nervoso centrale in ambito pediatrico (Drug repurposing in paediatric neurological rare diseases - D-RaRe)
Progetto Pilota (per case study): Ataxia-telangiectasia (Sindrome di Louis-Bar): è una malattia rara neurodegenerativa, che esordisce in genere nell’infanzia e causa grave disabilità. La prognosi è grave, per la possibilità di insorgenza di immunodepressione, infezioni respiratorie, neurodegenerazione, teleangectasie oculari e cutanee, e rischio di sviluppare tumori.
Le attività che saranno svolte dai ricercatori del DSFS vanno dall'utilizzo di banche dati (es. FDA, EMA) di farmaci e tools farmacologici da valutare in silico in merito al loro fittaggio con i signalling pathways delle diverse forme cliniche delle malattie (rare) da studiare, alla caratterizzazione biochimica e farmacologica dei relativi meccanismi di azione e dell'attività preclinica, alla (ri)formulazione di forme farmaceutiche idonee all'impiego pediatrico e alle terpie personalizzate (drug repurposing).
L’obiettivo che si intende raggiungere nei 4 anni del progetto è quello di canalizzare i risultati delle attività di ricerca convertendoli, mediante strategie di riposizionamento terapeutico di farmaci, nello sviluppo di nuove terapie, scalabili industrialmente, per il trattamento clinico di patologie rare neurologiche in ambito pediatrico.
PROGETTI DI RICERCA PNRR
Molti ricercatori del DSFS partecipano ad alcuni dei progetti finanziati nell'ambito del PNRR (pagina in fase di completamento)
PE6 - PARTNERIATO ESTESO SULLA MEDICINA DI PRECISIONE
TITOLO DEL PROGETTO: HEAL ITALIA - Health Extended ALliance for Innovative Therapies, Advanced Lab-research, and Integrated Approaches of Precision Medicine
- Proff. Rosario Pignatello, Teresa Musumeci, Angela Bonaccorso
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Prof. Antonio Rescifina
This project aims to accelerate the exploitation of a kit-based THP technology for the production of PET tracers for the detection of cancer and other human pathologies using the advantages of 68Ga. Differently to the nowadays used PET tracers, the products derived from the development of the project will have the advantages of using THP as chelating unit for the 68Ga. This will ensure a quantitative radiolabelling in extreme mild conditions without eluate pre-processing or post-labelling purification. Moreover, other radionuclides, such as In111 and Ga67, and others, can be quantitatively labeled with the same products ensuring other applications in detection and therapy.
- Proff. Salvatore Sortino, Aurore Fraix
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CN1 - Centro Nazionale per simulazioni, calcolo e analisi dei dati ad alte prestazioni
- Proff. Francesco Pappalardo, Giuseppe Forte, Salvatore Guccione, Antonio Rescifina, Simone Ronsisvalle
Spoke 8 will carry out two major activities, i) In Silico Medicine & ii) Omics Data.
In silico medicine aims at the following objectives:
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To develop a fully integrated digital data flow between the HPC center and the healthcare centers.
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To use HPC solvers to develop vertical solutions for In Silico Medicine (both Digital Patient and In Silico Trials, which provide sufficiently large-scale or the necessary computational performance)
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To expose these solutions through automated pipelines that hide the complexity to clinical and industrial end-users and allow automated workflows that execute and return into the Electronic Health Record of biomarkers predicted in silico as soon as the necessary input data are made available for that patient.
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To conduct comparative studies on selected in silico medicine applications to quantify the performance and cost benefits of using an advanced HPC platforms and not medium-range clusters or cloud computing.
Omics data aims at the following objectives:
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To design and develop a fully automatized workflow, in which all the steps can benefit from ad hoc software, graphical interfaces (i.e., LIMS), etc.
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To deploy bioinformatics pipelines capable of performing exceptionally on next-generation hardware, including GPU-based HPC or FPGA.
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To develop machine learning algorithms (including machine vision) to analyze omics data (including radiomics) efficiently, with the final goal to provide reliable correlations and associations.
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To stratify patients for improved diagnoses and more efficacious pharmacological treatments.
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To calculate thermodynamics and kinetics of drug-target binding through HPC-optimized physics-based methods (portability to quantum computing will also be investigated).
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To deploy user-friendly and ready-to-use software packages for the medical and biological community country-wise.
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Centro Nazionale di Ricerca 3 – Sviluppo Di Terapia Genica e Farmaci con Tecnologia a RNA (spoke 2)
- Dr.ssa Agata Grazia D'Amico
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Ecosistemi dell’Innovazione “Micro and nano technologies and systems for energy, environment, smart agriculture, smart mobility, health and cultural heritage
PROGRAMMA: SAMOTHRACE - SiciliAn MicronanOTecH Research And Innovation CEnter
- Proff. Filippo Caraci, Giuseppe Forte, Salvatore Petralia
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Piano Complementare PNRR – linea 1a
PROGRAMMA: ANTHEM - AdvaNced Technologies for Human-centrEd Medicine (spoke 4)
- Prof.ssa Claudia Di Giacomo
Progetto Europeo ICOD in collaborazione con l'IRCCS Oasi di Troina
I nutraceutici per prevenire e curare le infezioni virali e anche il Covid nei bambini
13 marzo 2021 - Lo studio dei ricercatori dell’Università di Catania è stato pubblicato sulla prestigiosa rivista scientifica “International Journal of Molecular Sciences”
http://www.bollettino.unict.it/articoli/i-nutraceutici-prevenire-e-curare-le-infezioni-virali-e-anche-il-covid-nei-bambini
The main research groups working within DSFS are organized in six sections: Biochemistry, Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Technology, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Systems Biology.
Biochemistry section
Research is primarily focused on apoptotic processes, role of TG-2 in cellular differentiation, mechanism of action of NOS activators and inhibitors and the potential therapeutic application of stem cell.
Chemistry section
Organic synthetic methodologies regarding asymmetric 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions and carbohydrates, synthesis and structural characterization of polyhydroxyalkanoates. Study of physical, chemical and structural properties of materials and Smart Molecular Constructs Activated by Light, including their pharmaceutical and industrial application.
Medicinal Chemistry section
Primary research targets are design, synthesis and development of neuroprotective, anxiolytic, analgesic and anticancer agents utilizing the most advanced techniques such as as MM and ADME.
Pharmaceutical Technology section
Development of new drug delivery systems (DDS) for pharmaceutical, cosmetic/cosmeceutical, nutraceutical/food applications, using several techniques such as percutaneous absorption and non-viral vector studies. Calorimetric studies are performed by DSC.
Pharmacology and Toxicology section
Research is focused on two major fields of interest: neurophamacological and neurobiological studies with a special attention to Alzheimer’s disease and neuromodulation of pain transmission and mnemonic processes.
MEET THE YOUNG RESEARCHERS OF DSFS