BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH · Dr. Federica Pollastro

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Eastern Piedmont (UPO)
Novara, Italy

Federica Pollastro has worked on natural bioactive compounds from alimentary, toxic and psychoactive plant studying the dietary and pharmaceutic implications of their pure compounds. Sesquiterpenoids from plant have been central to her research throughout the research career. In this area, she is proficient in isolation and structural elucidation of phytochemicals. Collaborations with the COSMESE (Prof. Ballero) and Prof. Mozrzymas (Wroclaw University) led her to the identification of the target and mechanism of action of polyacetilene oenanthotoxin (Sardonic Grin). She has worked on chemoreception based on sesquiterpene-γ-lactones from different species of plant (A. umbelliformis, A. absinthium, T. parthenium) discovering their involvement in nociception (TRPs) and on bitter taste receptor (hTAS2R46). This work gave her the opportunity to find a new compound belonging to the rare class of sesterpenes. In collaboration with Prof. Taglialatela-Scafati, she has isolated a new class of non-psychoactive cannabinoids from Cannabis sativa and semisynthetised cannabinoid-quinols which pharmaceutical implication have been studied by Prof. Eduardo Munoz (Cordoba). She focused her attention also on molecules able to interact with lipid peroxidation, eicosanoids biosynthesis, PGE2 synthase, cellular proliferation, endoplasmic reticulum, all target of pharmacological relevance that gave her the opportunity to identify important bioactive lead-compounds, unique cumarine-ethers from Thapsia garganica and a new type of triglycedrides from Helichrysum italicum. During this time, she has directly supervised the work of undergraduate students and she is actually the coordinator of a phytochemical lab group and the CEO of the PlantaChem spin off.