About PS

Career

To be completed

Keywords, Research Areas

• Origins of Life / Synthetic Biology / Systems Chemistry / Artificial Life

• Bio-organic Chemistry / Organocatalysis / Chemical Biology

• Liposome Technology / Colloidal Chemistry

• Enzymology / Spectroscopic Characterization of Biomacromolecules

• Autopoiesis and Cognition / Sciences of the Artificial

Working at the Interface between Chemistry and Biology

Pasquale Stano studied chemistry at the University of Pisa, Italy. In his thesis, done under the supervision of Prof. Mauro Isola (Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry), he worked on the design and synthesis of heterotopic Schiff base ligands and their nickel and copper supramolecular complexes, and studied the kinetics of trans-imination on these compounds. He joined the Pier Luigi Luisi group in Zürich (ETH, Department of Materials) in February 2002, working on liposomal drug delivery (of camptothecin derivatives, in collaboration with Sigma-Tau, Pomezia, IT). In 2004 he moved to the Dept. of Biology (now: Departiment of Sciences) of the University of Roma Tre (Rome, Italy), where he has been involved in the Luisi's research dealing with semi-synthetic "minimal cells". This research has included several national and international projects like the "Minimal Cell" project (Junion Grants at the "Enrico Fermi" Centre), the PRIN 2008FY7RJ4, and EU FP6 project "Synthcells", and the HFSP project Nr. RGP0033/2007-C). In 2016 he became Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry with the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy (Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, DiSTeBA). He currently promotes the bottom-up approach in synthetic biology, origin of life research, artificial life, and systems chemistry.

Professorship Qualification (ASN, Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale)

• 2013 December: Professore di II Fascia - Organic Chemistry (03/C1)

• 2014 June: Professore di II Fascia - Biochemistry (05/E1)

Editor and Reviewer Roles

• Section Editor-in-Chief of Life - Section "Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology" (MDPI)

• Editor of BioSystems (Elsevier)

• Associate Editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology - Section "Synthetic Biology" (Frontiers)

• Associate Editor of Synthetic Biology (Oxford Academics)

• Member of the Editorial Board of ChemSystemsChem (Wiley)

• Review Editor of Frontiers in Physiology - Section "Membrane Physiology and Membrane Biophysics"(Frontiers)

​

• ​Reviewer of about 550 manuscripts (240 verified on Web of Science, AGG-8333-2022) and about 30 international research proposals

Editor of Books, Special Issues, Research Topics

Books

• Pier Luigi Luisi, Pasquale Stano (Eds.), The Minimal Cell (Springer, 2011)

Special Issues and Research Topics

• Basic Questions about the Origins of Life (proceedings of the 4th Course of the International School on Complexity - Erice - 1-6 October 2006 (Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 2007);

• Philosophical and scientific perspectives on emergence (Synthese, 2009);

• Synthetic Biology (Current Opinions in Chemical Biology, 2014);

• Protocells - Design for Life (MDPI Life, 2015);

• What can synthetic biology offer to artificial intelligence, and vice versa (Biosystems, 2016);

• Advances in Artificial Life, Evolutionary Computation and Systems Chemistry (Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2016);

• Selected papers from the Satellite Workshop of the 14th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL 2017) on What Can Synthetic Biology Offer to Artificial Intelligence? (Complex Systems, 2018).

• Trends and Outlooks in Synthetic Biology: A Special Issue for Celebrating 10 Years of Life and Its Landmarks (MDPI Life, 2020-21).

• Membranous and Membraneless Interfaces—Origins of Artificial Cellular Complexity (MDPI Life, 2021)

• Fiat Lux! Light-Driven and Light-Controlled Synthetic Biology Parts, Devices, Systems and Processes (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology - Synthetic Biology, 2021).

• Biology in AI. New frontiers in hardware, software and wetware modeling of cognition (Artificial Life, 2022)

• Autopoiesis: Foundations of Life, Cognition, and Emergence of Self/Other (BioSystems, 2022)

• Bio-Chem-ICTs: Synergies between Bio/Nanotechnologies and Molecular Communications (IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications, 2023)

• Optogenetics and Light-Induced Processes in Synthetic Biology (MDPI Life, 2023/2024)

• Education in Synthetic Biology (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology; section Synthetic Biology, 2023/2024)

• Strategies for Controlling Synthetic Cells: Approaches, Models, Applications (MDPI Life, 2023/2024)

• Recent Advances in Chemical Artificial Intelligence (MDPI topic, participating journals: AI, Chemosensors, Molecules, Sci, Life, Biomimetics 2024/2025)

• Advances in Synthetic Biology: Artificial Cells and Molecular Communication (IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications 2024/2025)

• Feature Papers in Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology 2024 (MDPI Life 2024/2025) 

• Neuromorphic Engineering in wetware: achievements and perspectives (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2025)

• Hypothesis-Driven Artificial Intelligence Approaches for Complex Systems Biology (MDPI Systems, 2025)

Affiliation to Scientific Societies

• Active Membership: The International Society for Artificial Life

• Past Membership: Italian Society of Pure and Applied Biophysics (SIBPA), American Chemical Society, International Liposome Society

Supporter

• Supporter of the "Build-a-Cell" Initiative

• Supporter of the "Synthetic Cell" Initiative

Teaching

Current teaching activities (see the Teaching page):

• Organic Chemistry, since AA 2016/17;

• Bio-Organic Chemistry, from AA 2016/17 to AA 2024/25

• Systems Chemistry, starting from AA 2026/27

Previous teaching activities: 

• at the Science Department of RomaTre University: module "Spectroscopic Methods in Biochemistry" of the course "Applied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology", from AA 2004/05 to AA 2010/11);

• at the Chemistry Department of Ca' Foscari University of Venice: module "Lipid vesicles" of the course "Physical Chemistry of Colloids", from AA 2008/09 to AA 2010/11;

• at ICN-Venice: a course on "Liposomes in Basic and Applied Science" in the "Master in Nanotechnology 2009".