DI PIETRO Maria Letizia

Dr. Maria Letizia Di Pietro got her Laurea in Chemistry cum laude at the University of Messina in October 1993 and the PhD in Chemical Sciences in January 1999 discussing a thesis entitled “Interazioni tra complessi planari di platino(II) e acido deossiribonucleico” (“Interactions of square planar Pt(II) complexes and deoxyribonucleic acid”).
From June 1999 to June 2001 she got a post-doc position at the University of Messina.
Since December 2001 she is a researcher at the Department of Inorganic, Analytical and Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Messina.
Her research activity falls within the field of Bioinorganic Chemistry and is currently focused on the possible applications in the clinical field of coordination compounds able to interact non-covalently with nucleic acids. This is the natural evolution of her research work, which began with the study of the basic features of the intercalation of small molecules into DNA double helix by means of square-planar Pt(II) and Pd(II) complexes bearing suitably chosen ligands, then continued investigating the possibility of these complexes to exhibit molecular recognition towards different nucleic acids. Starting from these bases, and since we know that some anticancer drugs such as Doxorubicin are cytotoxic owing to their intercalation into DNA, Dr Di Pietro decided to test the possible cytotoxic activity of new compounds of Pt(II) and other transition metals, after verifying their ability of intercalation into DNA. Moreover, since photodynamic therapy (PDT) is one of the new frontiers in the clinical field, she was involved in a study in which the intercalation of the compound is photoactivated "in situ", thus representing a link between photoinduced processes and intercalation potentially useful in therapy.
She actively collaborates with other Italian and European researchers, such as colleagues of the “Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia”, “Università of Bologna”, “Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore” in Rome, "Chalmers University of Technology" in Göteborg, “Université Paris Descartes” in Paris.
Her scientific production is documented by 35 articles published on international journals and several communications at national and international congresses.