Telephone +39 02 5031 5071 Fax +39 02 5031 5068 Insitution University of Milan Address Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica-Microbiologia-Virologia Università di Milano Home Page http://www.unimi.it
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Professor Donatella TaramelliDonatella Taramelli is a Full Professor of Pathology in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Milan (UMIL) and coordinator of Cluster 1 (Novel aminoquinolines), of the EU funded Antimal Integrated project on new antimalarial drug discovery and development. She is also the Italian representative for the COST Action B22 - Drugs for Parasitic Diseases and co-organised three COST B22 meetings in Siena (2005), Basel (2006) and Modena (2007). Professor Taramelli's postgraduate experience was in the area of tumour immunology. After joining the Department of Public Health-Microbiology-Virology of UMIL 15 years ago, she has been working on the pathogenesis of malaria, antimalarial drug screening and mechanism of action. She is coordinating a malaria research network at UMIL that includes experts in organic and medicinal chemistry, natural products, and biochemistry. The team patented a series of new quinolizidinyl derivatives of 4-aminoquinolines, which are at the lead optimisation-candidate selection phase, in collaboration with NeED Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company focused on the discovery and development of compounds for the treatment of neglected diseases. Professor Taramelli’s team has completed important studies on the effects of parasite products (malaria pigment) on host immune responses, the characterisation of malaria pigment as antimalarial drug target, development of MTS assays for inhibitors of heme detoxification and of proteases in P.falciparum used to screen for novel antiparasitic compounds. The Milan Malaria network coordinated by Professor Taramelli includes collaborators from different Department/Institutes of the Faculty of Pharmacy of UMIL and the CNR. This allows the sharing of resources and major equipment. The network is joined in a Consortium with different malaria groups in Rome, Turin, Brescia, Siena, Naples and Camerino, which recently received financial support for 11 biannual post doctoral fellowships by Compagnia San Paolo – Turin. |
