Welcome
to Our Research Group

Prof. Francesco De Riccardis

Prof. Francesco De Riccardis graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Naples "Federico II" on 15/03/1989 with a score of 110/110 cum laude, under the supervisor Prof. Luigi Minale.
In May 1990, he was awarded the "G. Laonigro" degree prize, established by the Campania section of the Italian Chemical Society.
In March 1990, he won the competition for admission to the PhD program in "Pharmacologically Active Natural Substances" at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Naples. The research conducted within the framework of this PhD program, carried out under the guidance of Prof. Luigi Minale, resulted in the characterization of as many as one hundred and fifteen secondary metabolites from marine organisms. He discussed his PhD thesis in June 1993.
In November 1992, Prof. De Riccardis was the winner of the competition for university researcher at the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences of the University of Salerno (Degree Program in Chemistry).
From 04/15/1993 to 04/14/1994, he worked in the United States at the research laboratories of Prof. K. C. Nicolaou at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California.
On 04/15/1996, Prof. De Riccardis was confirmed in the role of Researcher at the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences of the University of Salerno.
From July to October 1998 and from July to September 1999, Prof. De Riccardis was invited by Professor Francis Johnson, Director of the "Department of Pharmacological Sciences" at "New York State University" in Stony Brook, to first serve as a Visiting Professor and then as a Research Scientist at that University. For his fruitful collaborative work, Dr. De Riccardis has held the position of "Research Scientist" at the "New York State University" in Stony Brook since July 26, 1999.
Since April 1, 2001, he has been an Associate Professor at that University.
On September 4, 2001, in Trieste, during the XXVII National Conference of the Organic Chemistry Division, Prof. De Riccardis was awarded the "G. Ciamician" medal by the Italian Chemical Society (Organic Chemistry section).
From February 2004 to March 2005, Prof. De Riccardis was invited to serve as a Visiting Professor at the Scripps Research Institute.

Since December 1, 2022, he has been a full professor in the field of Organic Chemistry at the University of Salerno.

Prof. Irene Izzo

Irene Izzo graduated in Chemistry with a score of 110/110 with honors in 1994 at the University of Salerno, where in the same year she won the competition for the PhD in Chemistry. In 1998, she became a PhD in Chemistry under the supervisor of Prof. Guido Sodano. She worked for a year (1997-1998) at the "Laboratoire de Stéréochimie" (E.C.P.M.) of the "Louis Pasteur" University in Strasbourg (France), under the supervision of Prof. Guy Solladié on a new method for the enantioselective synthesis of 1,2-diols, using chiral sulfides.
On November 1, 1999, she began her service as a researcher in the CHIM/06 disciplinary sector of the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences, where she worked at the Department of Chemistry. Since March 1, 2007, she has been an Associate Professor at the same institution, which in 2011 was named the Department of Chemistry and Biology. She has been qualified as a Full Professor since April 2018. In 2008, she conducted her research activities at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), in the laboratories of the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB), in collaboration with Prof. Fernando Albericio, focusing on the preparation of Kalahalide F analogs, a natural origin cyclic peptide with antitumor properties. Irene Izzo has been the Delegate for Internationalization of the Department of Chemistry and Biology "A. Zambelli" since the academic year 2013-2014 and for Equal Opportunities since 2023. Since the 2014-2015 academic year, she has been teaching at the Ecole Européene de Chimie, Polymères et Matériaux (ECPM) of the University of Strasbourg, offering a course on Solid-Phase Biomacromolecule Synthesis in the Master's program "ChemBioTech." Since January 2023, he has been an Associate Editor of SynOpen (Thieme). She is a co-founder and head of the Science Area of the Salerno branch of the national network of the Accademia dei Lincei's "I Lincei per una nuova didattica nella scuola." She is the author of more than 100 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals, 4 book chapters, and over 100 presentations at national and international conferences.

Prof. Giorgio Della Sala

Giorgio Della Sala received his Master Degree in Chemistry at the University of Salerno in 1997. In 2002 he earned his Ph.D. degree at the same university, with a thesis on the metal-catalyzed enantioselective oxidations, under the mentorship of prof. Arrigo Scettri. In 2002 he got a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Salerno, where he carried out studies on the synthesis of natural alkaloids and the microwave-assisted preparation of metal carbene complexes. From 2004 to 2020 he was assistant professor of organic chemistry at the University of Salerno, and he was appointed associate professor in 2020 at the same university. During his career, he joined the group of Dr. Susagna Ricart at the Department of Molecular Materials, Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (CSIC) for 2 months in 2003, and the group of with Prof. Karl Anker Jørgensen at the “Center for Catalysis”, Århus University (Denmark) for 6 months in 2007. Since the beginning of his independent career in 2007, his research activity is focused on the development of sustainable catalytic synthetic methodologies (organocatalysis, phase-transfer catalysis and recently photocatalysis) and their application to the total synthesis of natural products and bioactive organic molecules in general. He collaborated with the journal Catalysts as a Guest Editor for Special Issues and he is Associate Editor for Frontiers in Chemistry.

Dr. Rosaria Schettini

Rosaria Schettini completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Izzo Irene and Prof. Della Sala Giorgio in 2016 (Title of the thesis: “Novel macrocyclic systems in asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis”). During her PhD, she joined the research group of Prof. José Alemán Lara at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. From 2016 to 2019 she obtained a PostDoc position at the University of Salerno working in collaboration with Laboratoire de Synthàse Organique et Molécules Bioactives Université de Strasbourg et CNRS (Title of the project: “New library of iminosugar-cyclopeptoid conjugates for glycosidase inhibition”). In 2020, she was employed at IRBM Science Park as research scientist- peptide chemist.

From 2022 to 2025 she was a research fixed-time type A (RTDa position) at University of Salerno, and she worked on innovative synthetic methodologies for diagnostic application and during this period she spent six months Bracco Imaging Spa. From 01 March 2025, she is a tenure track researcher (Rtt position) at Department of Chemistry and Biology “A. Zambelli” and her main scientific interests focus on the design and synthesis of cyclic peptoids and azamacrocycles, their application as catalysts and their biological applications as MRI contrast agents.