Martina Pedrini

Passionate Ph.D. Chemist thrilled to enter in pharmaceutical industries and propose academic and professional knowledge to boost innovative projects

My Ph.D. research thesis is focused on the design, synthesis and characterization (NMR and LCMS
spectroscopies) of novel compounds for SARS-CoV-2 infectious diseases and neuroproteinopathies with the title "Design and Synthesis of bioactive organic molecules for infectious and neurodegenerative diseases". In the project framework, I trained and supervised up to ten B.Sc and M.Sc’ students in their internship to learn lab safety protocols and correct theoretical and practical problem-solving approaches to deal with research projects.
In March 2022, I had the chance to spend 6 months as a visiting Ph.D. student in Prof. M.D. Disney's
group at Chemistry Department of Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida (USA) to plan and perform in vitro (Optical melting, BLI, TR-FRET, MST) and in cell-based experiments (cell lines: HEK293T, Lymphoblastoid cells, iPSCs) to profile putative neuroprotective molecules interacting with mutated c9orf72-mRNA.
In February 2023, I spent one month at Università di Napoli Federico II to drive 1D imino proton NMR
spectroscopy experiments to study mRNA-ligand binging modes of small molecules library in different buffers, under the supervision of Prof. L. Marinelli and Dr. D. Brancaccio.

During my Ph.D. research fellowship, I developed medchem-driven approaches to the discovery of novel modulators of infectious and neurodegenerative diseases by identifying general synthetic procedures of putative patentable active compounds to create small SAR libraries and to elucidate their molecular mechanisms of action.

I published 3 articles (1 first first author) regarding several medicinal chemistry projects in international peer journals, attended 2 summer schools supported by fellowship in which I held oral communications and other 6 congresses holding poster presentations.
During my M.Sc. research internship, I was part of the authors' list of 2 articles regarding medicinal
chemistry projects in oncology and immuno-oncology.