Permanent Staff

  • Foto Pier Essay
    Pierangelo Metrangolo is Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano since 2011, where he is Executive Deputy Head of the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”. He also holds a position as visiting professor at the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Engineering of Biosynthetic Hybrid Materials of Aalto University, Finland, and at the VTT-Technical Research Centre of Finland. His awards include the 2005 ‘‘G. Ciamician’’ medal of the Division of Organic Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society, the 2005 Journals Grant Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2009 IUPAC Young Chemist Award, and the 2019 Fluorous Technologies Award. He is Chief of the Editorial Board of CrystEngComm (RSC), Co-Editor of Acta Crystallogr. B (IUCr), and Editorial Advisory Board member of Cryst. Growth Des. (ACS). He is author of 290 publications with 17686 citations (H-index: 60). He is currently Vice President of the Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division (Div. I) of the IUPAC. Since 2013 he is European Research Council grantee with the projects “FOLDHALO – Folding with Halogen Bonding”, and “MINIRES – A Minimalist Elastomeric Peptide” aimed at investigating the relevance of biomolecular halogen bonds.

     

    Institutional webpage

    Orcid ID 0000-0002-7945-099X

  • Francesca
    Francesca Baldelli Bombelli is Associate Professor in Chemistry at the Politecnico di Milano. She has been Group Leader at the European Centre of Nanomedicine (CEN) in 2013-2015. In 2011-2014 she has been Lecturer in Nanotechnology and Colloid Science at the School of Pharmacy, UEA, Norwich, UK. She has been Post-Doc researcher: 2009-2011 at CBNI, University College of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; 2006-2009 at the University of Florence; 2004-2006 at Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden. She got her PhD in Chemical Sciences in 2004 at the University of Florence. Her main research interests are in the development of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) for the diagnosis and treatment of untreatable diseases. She is also interested in studying the complex processes occurring at the nano-bio interface between nanomaterials and biological matter.

    Institutional webpage

    Orcid ID 0000-0001-8138-9246
  • giancarlo1
    Giancarlo Terraneo (GT) obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2006 from University of Milan (Italy). GT is (since October 17, 2014) Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering "Giulio Natta" – Politecnico di Milano (Italy). He became Full Professor in November 2021. GT’s research interests are in the field of: crystal engineering, supramolecular chemistry, nano-materials and structural studies through X-ray diffraction techniques. GT is co-author of 83 articles/reviews (source Scopus, h-index 24), 1 patent (PCT) and 2 book chapters. GT has been the presenting author of more than 50 communications at international/national conferences. GT is university associate at the Center for Nano Science and Technology Center @ Polimi (CNST-IIT@Polimi) and CNR- Institute of Chemistry of Molecular Recognition (ICRM). GT is co-founder of Politecnico di Milano Spin-Off named "FluorIT S.r.l.". GT is organizer or co-organizer of international/national conferences and workshops.
     
  • Gabri
    Gabriella Cavallo is Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano since 2012. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry in 2006 at the University of Salerno. After two years of activity in Pirelli Labs, a research unit of Pirelli S.p.A., she became post-doctoral researcher at Politecnico di Milano in 2008. She has been Team Leader at the Center of Nano Science and Technology of the Italian Institute of Technology in 2010-2011. In 2011 she has been visiting researcher at the VTT – Technical Research Centre of Finland. Since 2012 she is co-founder of FLUORIT, a Politecnico di Milano spin-off company for fluorine technologies. Her research activity is focused on the study of structure-property relationships of new fluorinated functional materials based on non-covalent interactions. She is also interested in the study of self-assembled systems based on proteins with high surface activity.


    Institutional web page

    Orcid ID 0000-0001-6387-9014
  • vale1Valentina Dichiarante is Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano since December 2021. From 2016 she is Lecturer in Chemistry at the School of Architecture and Building Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. She has been post-doctoral researcher: 2012-2015 at Politecnico di Milano, 2010-2011 at Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives CEA-Saclay (France), 2008-2009 at PhotoGreen Lab (University of Pavia). She obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2008 at the University of Pavia (Italy). Her current research interests are in: (i) design and synthesis of highly fluorinated ligands for the development of nanostructured theranostic platforms and functional materials; (ii) synthesis, optimization and characterization of supramolecular responsive materials, based on noncovalent interactions.

    Institutional web page

    Orcid ID 0000-0002-2977-5833
  • Foto CV dipartimento CPClaudia Pigliacelli is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor (RTD-B) at the 'Giulio Natta' Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano and works in the SupraBioNanoLab research group since 2020. She received her PhD in Pharmacy from the University of East Anglia (UK) in 2015. She worked as research assistant and post-doc researcher at Politecnico di Milano (2013-2016), and as post-doc researcher at Aalto University (Finland, 2016-2019) and at the Centro de Investigaciones Cientifícas Avanzadas (CICA, Universidade da Coruña, Spain, 2020). In 2019 she was awarded the MSCA SEAL OF EXCELLENCE @ POLIMI fellowship. Her current research activity is focused on the design of self-assembled nanoscale systems based on peptides, inorganic nanoparticles and hybrid systems to be employed as drug carriers, diagnostic/theranostic tools and sensors. She is also skilled in the use of electron microscopy techniques for nanomaterials characterization.

    Institutional web page

    Orcid ID 0000-0002-0143-9045
 

FOLDHALO News

  • Acid···Amide Supramolecular Synthon for Tuning Amino Acid-Based Hydrogels’ Properties

    Eleonora Veronese, Dr. Claudia Pigliacelli, Dr. Greta Bergamaschi, Prof. Giancarlo Terraneo, Prof. Valentina Dichiarante and Prof. Pierangelo Metrangolo have recently published an article on Chemistry—A European Journal about "Pivotal role of the protein corona in the cell uptake of fluorinated nanoparticles with increased sensitivity for 19F-MR imaging".

    The full paper can be found at the following link: Acid···Amide Supramolecular Synthon for Tuning Amino Acid-Based Hydrogels’ Properties.

    Abstract. Supramolecular hydrogels formed by the self-assembly of N-Fmoc-L-phenylalanine derivatives are gaining relevance for several applications in the materials and biomedical fields. In the challenging attempt to predict or tune their properties, we selected Fmoc-pentafluorophenylalanine (1) as a model efficient gelator, and studied its self-assembly in the presence of benzamide (2), a non-gelator able to form strong hydrogen bonding with the amino acid carboxylic group. Equimolar mixtures of 1 and 2 in organic solvents afforded a 1:1 co-crystal thanks to the formation of an acid···amide heterodimeric supramolecular synthon. The same synthon occurred in the transparent gels formed by mixing the two components in 1:1 ratio in aqueous media, as revealed by structural, spectroscopic, and thermal characterizations performed on both the co-crystal powder and the lyophilized hydrogel. These findings revealed the possibility to modulate the properties of amino acid-based hydrogels, by involving the gelator in the formation of a co-crystal. Such crystal engineering-based approach is demonstrated to be also useful for the time-delayed release of suitable bioactive molecules, when involved as hydrogel coformers.

     

    How to cite:
    Eleonora Veronese, Claudia Pigliacelli, Greta Bergamaschi, Giancarlo Terraneo, Valentina Dichiarante and Pierangelo Metrangolo Acid···Amide Supramolecular Synthon for Tuning Amino Acid-Based Hydrogels’ Properties, Chem. Eur. J., 2023, e202301743.
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202301743

     

  • Computation meets experiment: identification of highly efficient fibrillating peptides

    Lorenzo Sori, Andrea Pizzi, Pierangelo Metrangolo, and others have recently published an article on CrystEngComm about "Computation meets experiment: identification of highly efficient fibrillating peptides".

    The full paper can be found at the following link: Computation meets experiment: identification of highly efficient fibrillating peptides.

    Abstract. Self-assembling peptides are of huge interest for biological, medical and nanotechnological applications. The enormous chemical variety that is available from the 20 amino acids offers potentially unlimited peptide sequences, but it is currently an issue to predict their supramolecular behavior in a reliable and cheap way. Herein we report a computational method to screen and forecast the aqueous self-assembly propensity of amyloidogenic pentapeptides. This method was found also as an interesting tool to predict peptide crystallinity, which may be of interest for the development of peptide based drugs.

     

    How to cite:
    Lorenzo Sori, Andrea Pizzi, Greta Bergamaschi, Alessandro Gori, Alfonso Gautieri, Nicola Demitri, Monica Soncini and Pierangelo Metrangolo, Computation meets experiment: identification of highly efficient fibrillating peptides, CrystEngComm , 2023, TBD
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3CE00495C

     

  • Pivotal role of the protein corona in the cell uptake of fluorinated nanoparticles with increased sensitivity for ¹⁹F-MR imaging

    Lodovico Gatti, Dr. Cristina Chirizzi, Pietro Milesi, Prof. Pierangelo Metrangolo, Prof. Francesca Baldelli Bombelli and others have recently published an article on Nanoscale Advances about "Pivotal role of the protein corona in the cell uptake of fluorinated nanoparticles with increased sensitivity for 19F-MR imaging".

    The full paper can be found at the following link: Pivotal role of the protein corona in the cell uptake of fluorinated nanoparticles with increased sensitivity for 19F-MR imaging.

    Abstract. In vivo cell tracking by non-invasive imaging technologies is needed to accelerate the clinical translation of innovative cell-based therapies. In this regard, 19F-MRI has recently gained increased attention for unbiased localization of labeled cells over time. To push forward the use of 19F-MRI for cell tracking, the development of highly performant 19F-probes is required. PLGA-based NPs containing PERFECTA, a multibranched superfluorinated molecule with an optimal MRI profile thanks to its 36 magnetically equivalent fluorine atoms, are promising 19F-MRI probes. In this work we demonstrate the importance of the surface functionalization of these NPs in relation to their interaction with the biological environment, stressing the pivotal role of the formation of the protein corona (PC) in their cellular labelling efficacy. In particular, our studies showed that the formation of PC NPs strongly promotes the cellular internalization of these NPs in microglia cells. We advocate that the formation of PC NPs in the culture medium can be a key element to be used for the optimization of cell labelling with a considerable increase of the detection sensitivity by 19F-MRI.

     

    How to cite:
    Lodovico Gatti, Cristina Chirizzi, Giulia Rotta, Pietro Milesi, María Sancho-Albero, Victor Sebastián, Anna Mondino, Jesús Santamaría, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Linda Chaabane and Francesca Baldelli Bombelli Pivotal role of the protein corona in the cell uptake of fluorinated nanoparticles with increased sensitivity for 19F-MR imaging, Nanoscale Adv., 2023, 5, 3749-3760
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3NA00229B

     

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