Speakers
Dr. Christina N. Banti M.Sc. in Bioinorganic Chemistry, Dr Banti, received her bachelor’s degree in Biological Applications and Technologies, University of Ioannina, Greece in 2009. She was awarded a M.Sc. in Bioinorganic Chemistry, University of Ioannina, and obtained her PhD from the Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Ioannina, Greece. She is now adjunct lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina. She is member of the Editorial Board in Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Elsevier), member of the Editorial Advisory Board in Cell Biochemistry and Function, (Wiley) and Associate Editor in Frontiers in Chemical Biology, Section Molecular Sciences, (Frontiers). Her research interests are mainly focused on bioinorganic chemistry and particularly on the evaluation of the anticancer and antibacterial properties of metal complexes by studying their interaction with intracellular molecules.
Dr. Pascale Delangle is a senior researcher in bioinorganic chemistry and currently the Director of the SyMMES laboratory, “Molecular Systems and Nanomaterials for Energy and Health”, a joint unit in Grenoble between University Grenoble Alpes, CEA and CNRS. She defended a PhD in supramolecular chemistry in 1996 about phosphorous cation receptors and was then recruited at the Fundamental Research Division at CEA Grenoble to develop research on f-elements coordination in solution. In the last 15 years, she focused on metals in biology and more precisely on peptide design for selective metal ion chelation. Recent research topics exploit biomimetic strategies for the development of mimics of metal binding sites in proteins, either to understand their toxicity at the molecular scale, or to design functional agents that may be used in therapeutic applications. Among her favorite metals are copper, nickel and f-elements including some actinides such as uranyl.
Prof. Sotiris K. Hadjikakou is a Full Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry at the University of Ioannina, Greece.He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, followed by postdoctoral research from 1993 to 1995. He further broadened his expertise as a visiting researcher at the University of Essex, UK, in 1997, and completed a postdoc in Organometallic Chemistry at the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 2000. In 2013, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Ioannina, Greece, as a Professor. Since 2016, he has directed the Graduate Program in Biological Inorganic Chemistry (BIC), a role that expanded in 2023 when he also became Director of the International PhD Program in BIC and the Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry Section. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Institute of Materials Science and Computing. Prof. Hadjikakou’s research excellence has earned him a spot among the top 2% of scientists in his sub-field since 2021, and he is regarded as one of Greece’s leading chemists. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Inorganic Chemistry Communications (Elsevier) and is on the editorial boards of Phosphorus, Sulfur, and Silicon and the Related Elements, International Journal of Molecular Science (MDPI), Antibiotics (MDPI), and Frontiers in Chemical Biology.
Prof. Nils Metzler-Nolte is currently Full Professor and Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Ruhr University Bochum. He studied Chemistry in Hamburg, Freiburg and Munich (Germany), where he also got his PhD, followed by a postdoc in Oxford with the late Malcolm Green and an independent group leader position at the Max Planck Institute of Bioinorganic Chemistry in Mulheim / Ruhr. Nils started his first position as Associate Professor at the University of Heidelberg, and was appointed to his present position in Bochum in 2006. He served as Vice President for Early Career Researchers and International Affairs of Ruhr University from 2010 to 2012 and was Dean of his Faculty between 2014 – 2018. He served as Associate Editor for Dalton Transactions, and is currently Chief Editor of the Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (JBIC), the official journal of the Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. His ca. 250 papers and review articles have been cited well over 14 000 times in total, and his current h-index is 58 (Web of Science, July 2024). His research interests span a wide range of topics in Bioinorganic and Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry. His group has pioneered the chemistry of metal-peptide bioconjugates for targeted delivery of anticancer metal complexes. The group has also developed new metal-based antibacterial agents and holds several patents in this area. Recent topics include nanochemistry for drug delivery and targeting. The group covers the full range of chemical synthesis and characterization, through to cell biology and biomedical methods to study their mode of action.
Prof. Luisa Ronga completed her PhD program in Molecular Engineering at the Universities of Naples and Montpellier (Italian-French joint program) in 2008, and, afterwards, moved to the University of Montreal (Canada) as post-doctoral fellow funded by the government of Canada and “Fonds de Recherche Santé, Quebec”. Between 2009-2012 she has been R&D manager at Genepep Biotech in Montpellier. Then she took up her current position of assistant professor at University of Bordeaux and since 2016 at the University of Pau et Pays de l’Adour. Actually, she co-directs the joint-laboratory CNRS (France)- CNR (Italy) BIDs “Bioinorganic Drugs joint laboratory: a multidisciplinary platform promoting new molecular targets for drug discovery”. Research interests of Luisa Ronga are mainly related to the chemistry of biomolecules: design, synthesis, conformation and reactivity. She is actually focused on the use of high-resolution mass spectrometry for the study of biomolecules interactions with toxic and therapeutic metals. In particular, she is working on research lines on selenocysteine containing peptides and proteins in order to elucidate their role in the mechanism of action of metallodrugs and toxicity of environmental relevant metals. The comparative and competitive reactivity of the selenobiomolecules with their Cys-counterparts is also evaluated in her bioanalytical approach. She is co-author of 55 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, 2 chapters in book, 2 patents, 11 Meeting Proceedings, and more that 70 communications in conferences.
Prof. Magdalena Rowińska-Żyrek earned an MSc in biotechnology and physics (2008) and a PhD (2011), habilitation degree (2018) and the title of full professor (2024) in chemical sciences. Author of more than 85 publications. Graduate of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology and École Normale Supérieure de Cachan. Between 2012 and 2015, she worked at the University of Zurich. Currently, she heads the Biologically Active Metallopeptides Group at the University of Wrocław that tries to decipher the secrets of antimicrobial peptides (a promising alternative to traditional antibiotic therapies) and zincophores (molecules that guide these therapeutics to selected bacteria and fungi), using the retro-inverso strategy to enhance peptide stability.
Dr. Olivier Sénèque completed a PhD from the University of Orsay (Paris XI) under the supervision of Prof. Olivia Reinaud in 2002, working on supramolecular models of zinc proteins. Then, he spent two postdoctoral years in the group of Pascale Delangle at the CEA-Grenoble where he developed small peptides models of copper(I) and mercury(II)-binding proteins. He was then appointed as a CNRS researcher in 2004 in Grenoble. He was interested in understanding the reactivity of zinc finger sites in various stress conditions (oxidative stress, metallic stress) using peptide-based structural models of these sites. Then, capitalizing on its experience in zinc finger peptide design, he started developing luminescent probes for Zn2+ relying on lanthanide(III) luminescence. His work now focuses on the development of lanthanide-based luminescent and MRI probes for biological imaging.