FRANCHINI Silvia

Silvia Franchini, female, is assistant professor at the Department of Life Science of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She is a medicinal Chemist by Training (Degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical technology, 110/110 cum laude) and PhD in Drug Sciences. She has more than twenty years’ experience in preclinical drug discovery, in particular in the design, synthesis and optimization of novel ligand/tool compounds. During her three year post-doctoral fellowship at UPENN she have developed the ability to work in a multidisciplinary context, in close contact with biologists, immunologists and pathologists and she have built expertise in protein chemistry (purification, proteomic analysis, development of strategies for site-specific chemical functionalization) and application of new methods (LC-MS/MS, SPR) for the study of protein-protein interactions and protein ligand interactions.
Her research interests can be summarized within the following projects:
- identification of novel CNS active compounds targeting GPCR receptors (muscarinic, alpha1, 5-HT1A, dopamine, TAARs) and sigma 1 / sigma2 receptors for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, pain, depression and cancer.
- novel HDACs inhibitors for the treatment of cancer
- novel DAT inhibitors as medications for drug abuse.
- novel pseudo-nucleotides as inhibitors of reverse transcriptase for the treatment of viral infections

Bibliometric Indicators:
Papers on peer-reviewed journals >47 with h-index 18 (Scopus 17/01/2021)
Patents: 2.

Founding (last 5 years)
2018-2020 As an indipendent PI, one competitive grant by UNIMORE.
2017 As a PI, by FFABR.
2015-2016 As an indipendent PI, one competitive grant by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena.