Maria Laura Bolognesi

MARIA LAURA BOLOGNESI obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Bologna, in 1990. After postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, she returned to the University of Bologna, where she is currently Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the PhD Programme in Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2009 she was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and in 2018 at the Université de Caen Normandie. For the period 2014-2017, Maria Laura was awarded a Special Visiting Researcher Scholarship through the Brazilian Science without Borders programme. She serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, the President of the Division of medicinal Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society and as a member of the Advisory Board of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry. Since the beginning of her career, Maria Laura has focused on the design and synthesis of small molecules as probes to study biological targets or as drug candidates. She is currently focusing her research efforts on the identification of bivalent/bifunctional ligands for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neglected tropical diseases. She has a track record of more than 200 publications and more than 100 invited lectures worldwide. She is particularly committed to the training of young researchers (currently coordinating a Marie Curie Action) and to women in science.