PERI FRANCESCO

Areas of expertise: Organic and medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and development, natural products, immunology, inflammation

CV summary and scientific activity

Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Milan-Bicocca (UNIMIB) since November 2017. Since 2009, he has also been a tenured professor at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Lyon, where he teaches a course in Pharmaceutical Chemistry (3 ECTS) at M2 level (master's degree).

His scientific interests focus on organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry and the discovery of new drugs, with particular attention to the molecular mechanism of action of drug candidates.  His main line of research is aimed at developing drug candidates that modulate the activity of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) with a view to developing new generations of therapies targeting these important receptors of human immunity.

 In this context, from 2015 to 2018, he coordinated a Marie Curie project funded by the European Community (Horizon call), the TOLLerant project (activation of Toll-like receptor 4 in health and disease: an integrated study of immunology and biochemistry), GA number 642157. He was then a partner unit in the MSCA-ETN BactiVax project, funded by H2020 (www.bactivax.eu, 2019-2022). Research in this field has yielded fundamental results in understanding the activation and inhibition of TLR4, and technology transfer has led to numerous patents on TLR4 antagonists and agonists in the preclinical stage of development as anti-inflammatory drugs (antagonists) and vaccine adjuvants (agonists).

In 2025, he obtained funding for the project he coordinated, 101223893-EVADERE  Enhanced VAccines DEsign against antimicrobial REsistance (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions  Doctoral Networks), GA 101223893.

The patents granted on TLR4 agonists as vaccine adjuvants have been licensed to Croda/Avanti through the spin-off CP2 Biotech. A collaboration agreement between CP2 and Croda has just begun in March 2023 to bring some new vaccine adjuvants to the veterinary market and for clinical trials.

In collaboration with other academic groups and pharmaceutical companies (CVie Therapeutics, Taiwan; Windtree, USA), his research group has discovered new drugs for heart failure based on an innovative mechanism of action, namely the activation of the human SERCA2a protein.

His research group has achieved important results in basic and applied research in the field of drug discovery using a multidisciplinary approach, employing organic synthesis, pharmaceutical chemistry, biophysics, molecular modelling and NMR, drawing on a wide network of collaborations around the world. His group's research has been disseminated through more than 140 scientific publications and more than 50 invited plenary lectures at international conferences.

He has supervised 15 PhD students and 10 postdocs. He has coordinated or participated in two EU-funded projects under the MSCA/ITN and Health programmes.

Since 2023, he has been president of the Division of Chemical Biology and Chemistry in Life Science of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS), where he is also a member of the executive board as representative of Professional Networks.

Education

1998 PhD in Chemical Biology from the Department of Chemistry, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Supervisor Prof. Manfred Mutter

1996 PhD in Chemistry from the University of Parma, Italy, Supervisor Prof. Giovanni Sartori

1992 Degree in Chemistry from the University of Milan (grade 110/110 cum laude), Milan, Italy, Supervisor Prof. Bruno Danieli

Current position

2017- Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

2010- Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) in Lyon, France.

Previous positions

2012-Visiting Professor, UC Davis, specialisation course “Advanced Organic Synthesis” Chem231B, Davis (CA), USA

2012-Lecturer at Paris 5 University, Chemistry at the interface with biology, Paris,

Publications and patents

Bibliographic parameters: Google Scholar (October 2024): Citation= 6501; h-index = 43; i10-index=93   

Scopus (October 2024): Citations = 4966 ; h-index= 38                   

Since 2022, I’m in the top 2% of the world's most cited scientists (Stanford University Ranking)