Linda Chiappalupi
Email: lchiappalupi@abactherapeutics.com
Affiliation:
ABAC Therapeutics
Barcelona
Spain
Education and experience
I obtained the degree in Pharmacy at the Universita’ degli Studi di Perugia, Italy, in 2007. During this five years university course I had the opportunity to extensively study the fundamental principles of pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and the practical techniques in medicines manufacturing, analysis and quality assessment. After that I was enrolled as internship student where I worked on recombinant antibodies against the oncoproteins E6 and E7 of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita` (ISS, Rome, Italy, Department of Virology Immunology Parasitic and Infectious Diseases). It was during this internship that I acquired technical skills in molecular biology and I developed my deep interest in the scientific research.
In 2008 and 2009 I joined the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research (San Diego, CA, USA) where I worked as medical research collaborator. I was responsible for conducting anticancer drugs association studies by high throughput screening technology on different cancer cell lines provided by the cooperating hospitals. The study aimed to validate an algorithm for personalized anticancer therapies.
In 2018 I decided to enroll in Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies MSC (Universita’ degli Studi di Perugia, Italy) to strengthen my knowledge in biopharmaceutical products and in the innovative approaches within the drug development process. During my studies I took part in a research exchange program at the BMC (Biomedicinsk Centrum), Dept. of Biochemistry, Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden) where I had the opportunity to work, for the MSc thesis project, on enzymatic post-translational modification of therapeutic proteins. I finally graduated on October 2020.
In 2021 I obtained this PhD position as a Marie-Sklowdoska Curie fellow (ESR12) within the “INNOTARGETS” project starting my research work at ABAC Therapeutics (Barcelona, Spain), the biotech company where I am currently employed.
ESR12: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF IN VITRO TESTS, AND ALGORITHMS TO PREDICT TOXICITY
Project description
The goal of this research project is to provide a valuable in vitro method to predict toxicity of new chemical entities with antibacterial effect. Prediction of toxic effects of possible drug candidates in the early phases of drug development is crucial in order to prevent failures in further clinical trials.
To this aim, in vitro cytotoxicity of a panel of compounds will be evaluated in several mammalian cell lines belonging to different organs such as liver, heart, kidney, lung, CNS and Immune system.
The cytotoxicity assays will be performed either in 2D cell culture models and in 3D systems, such as sandwich cultures and other systems (spheroids, cylindroids…). Cytotoxicity will be evaluated performing in vitro assays enabling to detect cells viability, mitochondria functionality and other specific parameters related to each cell line system.
Lastly, the hollow fiber bioreactor system will be also used to study toxic effect in real time concentration changes of the compounds in order to mimic, through such a dynamic model, an in vivo-like condition. Furthermore, genotoxicity of the compounds will be assessed on zebrafish embryos model.
As completion of the project, all the in vitro results will be compared to the in silico toxicity results obtained by the software DEREK.
At the end, the availability of such accurate in vitro tests in predicting drug toxicity, could represent the possibility to overcome the drawbacks and limits of traditional animal models.