Section of Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical Sciences

The establishment of this section is primarily motivated by the homogeneous grouping of its members, all belonging to the disciplinary sectors CHIM/08 and CHIM/10. The section is also characterized by its chemical-pharmaceutical approach to drug studies, which complements the pharmacological and clinical perspectives. The thematic areas of this approach include:

1. Identification and optimization of prototypes (leads), of natural or synthetic origin, obtained through high throughput screening (HTS), fragment-based drug design (FBDD), or virtual screening (VS).

2. Rational design, synthesis, and optimization of molecules with biological activity using both classical methodologies of pharmaceutical chemistry (isosteric substitutions, molecular complication, molecular simplification, steric modulation) and advanced molecular modeling approaches (structure-based drug design, SBDD; ligand-based drug design, LBDD).

3. Molecular modeling of interactions with the target. Tools from computational chemistry, bioinformatics, and molecular graphics are used to evaluate in silico the mechanisms driving recognition between target macromolecules and ligands, as well as the flexibility and conformational changes of the interacting partners.

4. Development of predictive models for molecular properties (e.g., ADMET).

5. Establishment of reliable analytical methodologies needed for quality assurance, as well as for determining pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, and drug metabolism (ADMET). This type of research provides an essential link between the preparative phase (synthetic or extractive) and the pharmacological testing of a biologically active molecule.

6. Design, synthesis, and characterization of peptides of immunological, pharmaceutical, and cosmeceutical interest.

7. Research in the field of “Nutraceuticals,” focused on the study of foods, medicinal plants, and/or plant-based dietary supplements. Particular attention is given to the identification and quantification of bioactive metabolites contained therein; the development of multicomponent extractive and analytical methods (metabolomics); the evaluation of potential recovery of biologically active molecules from agri-food waste; the recovery of bioactive molecules from higher plant cell cultures; and the preparation of chemically characterized extracts enriched in biomolecules, suitable for pharmacological and medical studies aimed at assessing their preventive, restorative, therapeutic, and/or protective properties against specific pathologies or metabolic disorders.