Former Group members

Rossella Delpiano

email: rossella.delpiano@unica.it 

Project: Adsorption and degradation of pollutants through nanostuctures and immobilized enzymes

Bachelor's degree in chemistry in 2013, under the supervision of Prof Angelo Frongia and Prof Jean Ollivier, with a thesis entitled "Development of a protocol for the synthesis of α-amino benzocyclobutanones using an Amadori-Heyns type rearrangement" written following a 6-month internship funded by Erasmus scholarship at Laboratoire de Synthése Organique et Métodologie, Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d'Orsay (Université Paris Sud XI).

In 2016 she obtained a master's degree in Chemical Sciences at the University of Cagliari, under the supervision of Prof Andrea Salis, with a thesis entitled “Assembly of multicomponent nano-bioconjugates composed of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, proteins and gold nanoparticles”, from which she published her first research paper (DOI : 10.1021/acsomega.9b01240).

During the years 2016 and 2017 she worked at the Physics Department of the University of Cagliari with a research contract relating to a project for the synthesis of fluorescent nanosensors, under the supervision of Prof Carlo Maria Carbonaro, with whom she still occasionally collaborates.

In 2017 she started her PhD (currently in progress) in Chemical Sciences and Technologies at the University of Cagliari under the supervision of Prof Andrea Salis, in collaboration with the research group of Prof Edmond Magner of the Bernal Institute of the University of Limerick (Ireland) and with the Portovesme srl industry based in Portoscuso (Italy).

Her research project focuses on environmental remediation. In particular, in particular she deals with the adsorption and degradation of pollutants through nanostructures and immobilized enzymes. In 2017 she worked for a short period in the research laboratory of Prof Liana Muresan and Graziella L. Turdean at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of the Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj Napoca (Romania), thus starting a new collaboration.

During these years she has published two other research papers titled respectively “Adsorption of Cu2+ and Zn2+ on SBA-15 mesoporous silica functionalized with triethylenetetramine chelating agent” (DOI : 10.1016/j.jece.2019.103205) and “Improving Metal Adsorption on Triethylenetetramine (TETA) Functionalized SBA-15 Mesoporous Silica Using Potentiometry, EPR and ssNMR” (DOI : 10.1002/admi.202000544) (collaboration with Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955‐6900 Saudi Arabia). A fourth manuscript has been just published.

Nastaran Arab (Iran)

Project: Enzymatic electrochemical biosensors

Nastaran Arab is pursuing Ph.D. degree in analytical chemistry at Alzahra University. She received her BSc. degree in Pure Chemistry and her M.Sc. degree in Analytical Chemistry from the Damghan University in 2013 and 2016 respectively. Her Master’s thesis was focused on the development of ion-selective electrodes. In February 2022 she won YITP scholarship in Chemical Sciences and Technologies at the University of Cagliari with a project entitled “Enzymatic electrochemical biosensors". Currently, She is working on a doctoral dissertation in the field of electrochemistry under Prof. Fotouhi's supervision.  Her research interests include fabricating electrochemical sensors and electrochemiluminescence sensors.

Magdalena Szota (YITP Fellow)

E-mail: magdalena.szota@ikifp.edu.pl

Project: Development of smart nanostructures based on polyelectrolytes and proteins

Magdalena Szota is a PhD student at the Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Jerzy Haber PAS. She graduated from the Krakow University of Technology (MSc) in 2019 in the field of biotechnology. In her master's thesis, she worked on Controlled Drug Delivery Systems (CDDS). Currently, she is preparing a doctoral dissertation in this field of nanotechnology, under the supervision of Prof. Barbara Jachimska. Its main research areas are the physicochemistry of colloidal systems, in particular the physicochemical characteristics of dendrimers and proteins in the context of their interactions with anticancer drugs.

Jerzy Haber Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Niezapominajek 8, 30-239 Krakow, Poland.

Sarka Sovova (Czech Republic)

Project: protein corona on silica nanoparticles

Sarka Sovova is a PhD student at Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry. Her research is now focused on nanoparticles characterization and their interaction with protein. She graduated at the same faculty in 2017 in the field of physical chemistry. During her masters study, she stayed at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, where she also finished her master thesis (The interaction of DNA and surfactant in the presence of crowding agent). After that, she started PhD study at Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry and in 2019 and 2020 she took a short-term internship at Gent University, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Belgium. She worked there on the synthesis and characterization of CaCO3 particles. In September 2021 she won YITP scholarship and spent one month at Cagliari University under supervison of prof. Salis and Dr. Carucci, followed by 2 weeks internship in May 2022. She worked on specific buffer effect on nanoparticles-protein interaction. Currently she is preparing her doctoral manuscript and going to submit it during fall 2022. 

Other Visiting MD/PhD/ Postdocs

Agnieszka Kaminska (Post Doc, Poland) Project: Protein Corona

Frederik Helgund (PhD, Denmark) Project: Polyelectrolytes

Maryam Naseri (PhD, Iran) Project: Enzyme@MOF

Nicola Scalas

Francesco Raccis

Alessandra Cogoni

Giulia Granitzio