Personal Biography

I am a medicinal chemist proudly coming from Gattinara, a small town famous for its wine in the hills of Northern Italy. After having completed my MSc in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the Università del Piemonte Orientale (Italy), I obtained my Ph.D. in 2020, developing hit and lead compounds in different therapeutic areas. Along the way, I was named the best student of the Pharmacy courses for my undergraduate studies and my Ph.D. thesis was elected as the best Ph.D. thesis of the year from the medicinal chemistry division of the Italian Chemical Society. I joined the laboratory of Prof. S. J. Conway at the Department of Chemistry as a postdoctoral researcher in April 2021, funded by a two-year fellowship from the Italian Cancer Research Association (AIRC).

Research and Teaching

My research interests lie at the interface between chemistry, medicine and biology. I try to combine versatile chemical reactions to discover and optimize molecules that are endowed with a potential to be developed into drugs or cosmetics, starting from exploring the unmet needs of patients or consumers from the very beginning. During my Ph.D., I have focused my attention on the development of IDO1 inhibitors in cancer immunotherapy and on modulators of Store-Operated Calcium Entry, a mechanism involved in calcium homeostasis, which is involved in a rare disease characterized by muscle weakness and low platelet count, called tubular aggregate myopathy. This effort has led to two patents licensed to the pharmaceutical industry. In the realm of drug discovery, I have also invested in systematically evaluating drugs that are part of Essential Medicines List of the World Health Organization or that have been issued an International Non-proprietary name (INN) to unravel the key to medicinal chemistry successes. My current research focuses on understanding whether the hypoxic environment of a tumour can be used to selectively activate prodrugs designed to this scope. In this manner, anticancer agents which would target many organs leading to toxicity or to the need to reduce the dose, could instead be targeted to the tumour.

Publications

Serafini, M.; Cargnin, S.; Massarotti, A.; Tron, G. C.; Pirali, T.; Genazzani, A. A. What’s in a name? Drug nomenclature and medicinal chemistry trends using INN publications. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 64, 4410-4429 (2021).

Fallarini, S.; Bhela, I. P.; Aprile, S.; Torre, E.; Ranza, A.; Orecchini, E.; Panfili, E.; Pallotta, M. T.; Massarotti, A.; Serafini, M.*; Pirali, T. The [1,2,4] triazolo [4,3-a] pyridine as a new player in the field of IDO1 catalytic holo-inhibitors. ChemMedChem (2021), doi: 10.1002/cmdc.202100446.

Serafini, M.; Torre, E.; Aprile, S.; Del Grosso, E.; Gesù, A.; Griglio, A.; Colombo, G.; Travelli, C.; et al. Discovery of highly potent benzimidazole derivatives as IDO1 inhibitors: from structure-based virtual screening to in vivo pharmacodynamic activity. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 63, 3047-3065 (2020).

Serafini, M.; Cordero-Sanchez, C.; Di Paola, R.; Bhela, I. P.; Aprile, S.; Purghè, B.; Fusco, R.; Cuzzocrea, S.; et al. Store-Operated Calcium Entry (SOCE) as a therapeutic target in acute pancreatitis: discovery and development of drug-like SOCE inhibitor. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 63, 14761-14779 (2020).

Serafini, M.; Griglio, A.; Aprile, S.; Seiti, F.; Travelli, C.; Pattarino, F.; Grosa, G.; Sorba, G.; et al. Targeting Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) channel softly: the discovery of Passerini adducts as a topical treatment for inflammatory skin disorders. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 61, 4436-4455 (2018).

Highlighted in Chemical&Engineering News (C&EN), “Chili pepper compound made to self-destruct”, 2018, Volume 96, Issue 25.