Marialessandra Contino

I am an Associate Professor in Medicinal Chemistry, currently working at the Department of Pharmacy-Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Bari, Italy. Over the past decade, my research has primarily focused on the cannabinoid subtype 2 receptor (CB2R), investigating its potential as both a diagnostic and therapeutic target in the context of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. As part of this work, I am involved in the development of CB2R-based therapeutic agents, as well as radioligands and fluorescent probes for diagnostic purposes. My expertise spans the development and in vitro study of the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic profile of active agents. I have received several fellowships focused on the development of PET tracers for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, multidrug resistance (MDR) revertant agents, ligands targeting CNS receptors involved in disorders such as depression, obesity, and circadian rhythm disruptions (5-HT7, dopamine receptors, and sigma receptors), and fluorescent ligands for pharmacological assays. Recently, I also obtained scientific habilitation as a Full Professor in Medicinal Chemistry. Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to be Visiting Researcher in well-recognized Institutions as the Division of Drug Discovery and Safety, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR), Leiden University, the Netherlands (Erasmus+ program in 2004); the Innopharma Screening Platform, BioFarma Research Group, at the Center for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases (CiMUS) in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (EMBO fellowship in 2019 and in 2023,); as the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in Strasbourg, France (as PhD student in 2002). I have had the privilege of collaborating with both national and international research groups, which has led to significant scientific contributions, including: 111 articles in peer-reviewed journals (H-index = 31; 2,705 citations, according to Scopus 2024), 3 editorial papers, 5 book chapters, and 2 patents.