The Italian Cultural Institute of Melbourne presents ‘Chirality to design peptide nanostructures: from biomaterials to catalysis‘, a lecture by Professor and scientist Silvia Marchesan in collaboration with the University of Melbourne.
Tuesday 12 September 2023, 12:00 pm, Theatre (G20), Chemical Engineering 1 (165), The University of Melbourne.
In this talk, Prof. Marchesan will discuss the most recent developments in the design of smart materials based on supramolecular water-channels with tunable inner cavity diameter (0.4–2.0 nm). This work is laying the basis to develop smart gels with dual porosities (i.e., nanosized cavities and gel mesh) that can be selectively addressed for the encapsulation and release of molecules for a variety of applications, which could find use in areas as diverse as agriculture, catalysis, and medicine.
Silvia Marchesan completed her PhD in Chemistry at The University of Edinburgh (2008, UK), and qualified as Pharmaceutical Chemist (2007, UK) & Pharmacist (2006, Italy). She was honorary researcher at UCL (UK, 2005-2007), Academy of Finland Fellow at the University of Helsinki (2008-2010), CRSS Fellow jointly at Monash University and CSIRO (Melbourne, 2010-2012). She then moved to the University of Trieste (Italy), where she opened the Superstructures Lab in 2015 thanks to a starting grant (www.marchesanlab.com). In 2018, she became Associate Professor and received the Habilitation as Full Professor. In 2021-2022 (6 mo.) she has been visiting professor at the University of Cambridge (UK). She is member of several international scientific committees, of the Editorial Board of ACS Nano, and of the Advisory Board of Chem, ChemComm, J. Mater. Chem. B, ACS Appl. Bio Mater., Chem. Eur. J., Soft Matter, and other journals. She is Fellow of the RSC (UK), and member of ACS and MRS (U.S.A.).
Selected recent awards:
RSC Soft Matter Lectureship (UK) – 2021
EuChemS Org. Chem. Division sole representative at ACS Fall meeting (US) – 2020
Howard Lecture (UK) – 2020
Aulin-Erdtman Lecture (Sweden) – 2019
Nature Chemistry’s selection amongst emergent PIs defining the future of the discipline – 2019
Top-11 Rising Star in the natural sciences worldwide (Nature Index) – 2018
JSP Fellowship at Buergenstock Stereochemistry Conference (Switzerland) – 2018
Vittorio Erspamer Medal, Italian Peptide Society – 2017