Carmen Abate

Carmen Abate obtained her M.Sc. degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology cum laude in 1998 and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science in 2002 at the University of Bari. She then continued her research activity with a post-doc at the same University, followed by a post-doc in the USA at the Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), within the group of Prof. Glennon until 2005, that she joined again in 2008 as a ‘Fulbright Visiting Researcher’. After some contracts as Researcher, she got her tenure-track position in 2009 at the University of Bari, where she currently covers the role of Associate Professor. Her main research focus is the design and synthesis of small molecules targeting CB2 and sigma receptors, the latter being studied since her PhD research project. Since 2024 she is the leader of the ‘working group 1’ (drug design, modelling radiotracer) of a COST action focused on the study of the sigma-1 receptor (COST Action 23156, “Sigma-1 Europe”). She has been the recipient of several projects focused on the sigma-1 receptor, the last of which has been recently awarded by ERDERA (European Rare Disease Research Alliance), for the development of fluorescent sigma-1 ligands to validate sigma-1 receptor as therapeutic target in the Wolfram Syndrome. She has published more than 90 papers with a H index = 29 (Scopus).