Chiara Bianca Maria Platania
Chiara Platania is currently a researcher in Pharmacology and in 2021 she obtained the national scientific qualification as Associate Professor.
She held a PhD title in Neuropharmacology (University of Catania) and defended in 2014 her thesis about the role of dopaminergic receptor D3 on regulation of intraocular pressure in an animal model of ocular hypertension. In 2014 (December) she got the Master title in Drug Regulatory Affairs. In 2008 she has worked as Post Graduate Researcher at the laboratory guided by Prof. Rona Ramsay (Center of Biomolecular Sciences, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK), carrying out drug affinity studies on monoaminoxidases A and B, extracted and purified from S. cerevisiae and P. pastoris, as heterologous expression systems.
Within 2009 and 2010 she carried out a professional course as biotechnologist at the public-private research partnership between the Italian National Research Council and the pharmaceutical company Wyeth (now Pfizer), studying the physical-chemical properties (in-silico and in-vitro) of protein-biological membrane systems. Chiara Platania obtained in 2021 the Resident title in Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (University of Catania).
Since 2011, she has worked at the laboratory of Ocular Pharmacology and has carried out several studies on pre-clinical development of ophthalmic drugs, spanning from the in-silico to the in-vivo steps of drug development.
Since 2012 she is member of several scientific societies (Società Italiana di Farmacologia-SIF), Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and Association for Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics (AOPT). Since 2021, Chiara Platania is involved in the scientific communication program to general public, promoted by the Italian Society of Pharmacology (SIF)(https://www.sifweb.org/sif-magazine).
She authored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles (https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55356038400 ).
Academic Year 2021/2022
- DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL AND BIOTECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Master's Degree in Sciences and techniques of preventive and adaptative motor activities - 1st Year
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Chiara Platania research expertise is on ocular pharmacology, principally focused on retinal degenerations. Recently, Dr. Platania has carried out studies about P2X7 purinergic receptor, the RNA binding protein Elav-1 (HuR) and a set of microRNAs, which were identified as innovative pharmacological targets for treatment of diabetic retinopathy. Main technical approaches used by Dr. Platania are spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques applied to pharmacology, along with bioinformatic tools, molecular modeling (homology modelling, molecular docking) and physical chemistry approaches (molecular dynamics, MM-GBSA calculations). In-silico approaches are used to optimize (in compliance to 3R rules) and speed-up the in-vitro and in-vivo steps of drug development, with a specific attention to translational aspects of pharmacological research. Furthermore, Chiara Platania's research activity includes statistical analysis (e.g multivariate analysis) of pre-clinical and clinical datasets.