Photosensitised Processes and Their Biomedical Applications

Francesca Giuntini
Ph.D School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores Unversity

March 3-5, 2026

Place
Hall 3, Building A
Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences

Target audience
All students enrolled in our degree programmes.

Info
patrizia.polverinodelaureto@unipd.it
laura.acquasaliente@unipd.it

To enroll
https://medicina.elearning.unipd.it/course/view.php?id=7512

Programme

• March 3, h 14.30 - Photosensitisation
• March 4, h 14.30 - Applications of photodynamic processes: from therapy to drug delivery
• March 5, h 14.30 - Photodynamic processes as investigative tools, sensors and environmental

 Structure of the Short Course

In this thematic course we will explore the process of photosensitisation and we will survey how it can be exploited for therapeutic, biological and environmental applications.
This is an overview of the three sessions:

1. Photosensitisation

• What is photosensitisation
• Species involved in photosensitisation
• Photodynamic process: a particular type of photosensitisation
• Reactive oxygen species and their impact on biomacromolecules
• Photosensitisers: molecular features of an ideal sensitiser

• Photodynamic therapy: origins and history
• Anticancer photodynamic therapy
• Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy
• Photochemical internalisation: a smart approach to drug delivery
• Wound repair

• Chromophore-assisted inactivation of proteins
• Oxygen sensing
• Water remediation
• Insecticides
• What the future holds

Francesca Giuntini

Francesca Giuntini obtained her degree in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies from the University of Florence (Florence, Italy), and her PhD with Prof Giulio Jori, working on the synthesis of cationic phthalocyanines as photoantimicrobial agents.
After the PhD, Francesca worked for a year at Molteni Farmaceutici (Florence, Italy) on the synthesis of dual radio- and photo-sensitisers agents for synergistic boron neutron capture therapy and photodynamic therapy of tumours.

Francesca held post-doctoral positions at the University of Aveiro (Portugal), University of Bath (UK), and at the University of Hull (UK).
In 2013 she took up her first independent academic appointment as Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. She was promoted to Reader (Associate Professor) in Photoactive Therapeutics in 2019 and to Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Photoactive Therapeutics in 2024.

Francesca’s interests focus on the development of novel biomedical applications of photosensitised processes: she is interested in designing bespoke porphyrins for these applications and she is especially attracted by the association of porphyrins with smart materials.

RNA sequencing-based approaches in drug discovery

“Shaping a World-class University”
Master Degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies University of Padova

Caterina Carraro, PhD
Institute for Stroke and Dementia (ISD) di Ludwig-Maximiliens-Universität (LMU) München German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) | Systems Medicine, Bonn

The SC structure will include both interactive multidisciplinary seminars and hands-on bioinformatics sessions.

Students will gain knowledge on the basics of sequencing-based omics, on how to approach a single-cell transcriptomic analysis and their diverse applications in the drug pipeline, enlarging their knowledge on the use of sophisticated multi-omics techniques in drug discovery.

*MANDATORY REGISTRATION (for complete Short Course including Lectures, workshop, test)
BEFORE NOV. 25, 2025 @ https://bit.ly/RNACOURSE-CARRARO-JAN26

Lecture 1 Wed, January 7, 2026, 14:00-16:00 @Aula 2 DSF
Fundamentals of Transcriptomics

• - Sequencing-based omics in a nutshell: definition and complementarity with reductionist approaches
• - Transcriptomics and Epigenomics: overview of the major bulk and single-cell technologies
• - Examples and rationale for the selection of the most suited omics approach in your research

Lecture 2 Thu, January 8, 2026, 14:00-16:00 @Aula 2 DSF
Omics-driven experimental and computational approaches in Drug Discovery

• - Experimental platforms for the omics-based screening of drug candidates and MoA characterization
• - Bioinformatic tools and pipelines to support omics-based drug discovery and repurposing

Workshop Fri, January 9, 2026, 9:00-13:00, @AID (mandatory registration*, limit: 24 students)
Introduction to single-cell data analysis

• - Bioinformatics tutorial: tackling single-cell transcriptomics data with the open-source processing pipeline Seurat

Venue

Aula 2 and Aula Informatica Didattica (AID) of the Dipartimento di Scienze del Farmaco, via Marzolo 5, Padova

Credits for Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies students

2 CFU as Short Course “In depth analysis…” can be obtained only upon PASSED score at the final test.

Final test

Multiple choice test on the Moodle of the course (Please note that in presence attendance to all lectures and workshop is required to access the test and obtain the credits)

*MANDATORY REGISTRATION (for complete Short Course including Lectures, workshop, test)
BEFORE NOV. 25, 2025 @ https://bit.ly/RNACOURSE-CARRARO-JAN26

Info

barbara.gatto@unipd.it
alice.sosic@unipd.it