Aniello Palma
Aniello obtained a Masters degree in Chemistry at the Università di Napoli Federico II in 2005. He was subsequently awarded a STMicroelectronics fellowship by the Università di Napoli Federico II which focused on the preparation of non-volatile memories. In September 2006, he joined Prof Donal O’Shea’s group in the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology at University College Dublin to commence his PhD entitled “Synthesis and Application of New Infra-Red Fluorophores”. After completing his PhD, he moved to London in January 2011 and began working as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Anthony Barrett’s (FRS, FMEDSCI) group in Imperial College London. During this time, he worked on a medicinal chemistry project involving the synthesis of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors and also developed new methodologies to access poly-beta-keto esters. In January 2015, he joined Prof Oren Scherman’s research group in the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis at the University of Cambridge. His research projects focused on the synthesis of supramolecular polymers, supramolecular sensors and on the development of supramolecular catalysts. In 2017 he joined the School of Chemistry and Forensic Science at the University of Kent as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry establishing his research group. In 2023 he joined the School of Chemistry at UCD.
Postgraduate Students:
Camilla Di Girolamo
Camilla completed her bachelor’s degree in 2021 in chemistry and materials chemistry at the University of Bologna with a dissertation about “Biorthogonal chemistry: chemical strategies for biomolecules’ conjugation”. In October 2023 she completed a two-year master’s degree in chemistry presenting a thesis titled “Synthesis of multifunctional nanomaterials based on bovine serum albumin bioconjugates for phototheranostic and biosensing applications”, she worked on the project within the NanoBio Interface Lab at the University of Bologna. In November 2023, Camilla has been awarded the Sir Walter Hartley Fellowship from University College Dublin School of Chemistry and she is currently registered as a full-time graduate student, studying for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the supervision of Assistant Professor Aniello Palma. The subject of her PhD research is Peptide Based Functional Materials. The aim of the project is to use proline-based nano constructs, which, due to their resilient secondary structure, their periodicity and responsive nature, enable the synthesis of rationally designed novel biocompatible supramolecular constructs with tuneable reactive nanocavities.
Past Group Members:
Dr Dominic Brigthwell
Dr Kushal Samanta
Athina Fotopoulou
Kieran Marley
Elliott Fenn
Charlie Hards-Nicholls
Jack Marsh
James Lockhart
Rachel Sully