Federica Guarra

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT FEDERICA GUARRA

I am a postdoctoral-level Computational Chemist designing/optimising candidate drugs, investigating proteins\' functional dynamics and getting insights into disease related mechanisms. Previously I was an AIRC-funded fellow for the project “Designing selective inhibitors as dimmer switches for TRAP1 Mitochondrial Chaperone: towards innovative anticancer leads” at the Department of Chemistry of University of Pavia in Prof. Giorgio Colombo research group. Before that, I worked for a year as a Quality Assurance Assistant in Lusochimica, API manufacturer and part of Menarini Group. In this role I acquired experience in working in close collaboration with the other departments of the company in a fast-paced and stimulating environment with a good degree of accountability. My main responsibilities were Batch Record Review, Product Quality Reviews writing, Deviation and OOS management, SOPs writing. I received my PhD in Chemistry and Material Science at University of Pisa in 2020. For my PhD thesis I worked on the development of metal complexes with antiproliferative properties against cancer cells. I was mostly involved in the preparation and characterization (NMR, UV-Vis) of coordination compounds and in studying their interaction with proteins and polynucleotides by means of different techniques among which UV-Vis absorption, UV-Vis Fluorescence and CD spectroscopies. Part of my research was carried out as a visiting PhD at DIPC Institute in San Sebastián. In San Sebastián I worked on the preparation and characterization of radiolabelled complexes and the investigation of in vivo biodistribution and metabolization. Previously, my master thesis project was on the investigation of the antiproliferative properties and toxicity of metal complexes and also included measuring their binding to DNA. In addition to the synthesis and characterization of the compounds, during an Erasmus+ traineeship period at the Department of Pharmacy of University of Groningen I carried out in vitro studies on tumor cells and ex-vivo toxicity tests on rat tissues.