Italian versionProf. Alessia Bacchi
Graduated in Chemistry magna cum laude in 1991 at the University of Parma with the thesis: 'Preparation, structure, dielectric properties of copper and nickel complexes with polydentate acylhydrazonic ligands' (supervisors: Prof. Corrado Pelizzi, Istituto di Chimica Generale ed Inorganica, and Prof. Rosanna Capelletti, Dipartimento di Fisica).
PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1995 with the thesis: 'Structural investigations on metal complexes with polydentate ligands: analysis of the crystal packing and of conformational properties' (supervisor: Prof. Giancarlo Pelizzi, University of Parma).
Post-doctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Hamburg in the years 1995-1996 in the group coordinated by Prof. Keith Wilson.
Post-doctoral fellow at the Dipartimento di Chimica Generale ed Inorganica, Chimica Analitica, Chimica Fisica of the University of Parma in the years 1996-1998.
Researcher at the same Department since October 1998.
Associate professor at the Faculty of Science since October 1st 2001.
The present research is oriented mainly to the subjects:
Structural characterization and correlation between structure and reactivity of metal complexes of hydrazonic ligands
Structural investigation on transition metal complexes of diazenic ligands (in collaboration with University of Venice)
Induction and control of polymorphism on crystalline systems
Investigations on structural requirements for the drug-receptor interaction for pharmacologically active compounds
The research involves the application of single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction techniques with multiple aims:
as a method of characterization of new crystalline compounds
as a starting point for structural studies involving molecular modeling techniques
as a basis for structure-activity relationships studies
Structural data from diffraction experiments are integrated with those retrieved from the crystallographic databases and, if necessary, completed with the results of molecular modelling calculations.
The interpretation of the data is made by using structural correlation methods similar to chemometric techniques which are used to interpret data in analytic chemistry.
An example of application of X-ray diffractometry, chemometric methods and molecular modelling techniques in the study of a drug is given by the work on the crystal and molecular structure of the antibiotic
rifamycin O, which has been compared with the structures of other active and non active rifamycins. (A. Bacchi, G. Pelizzi, M. Nebuloni, P. Ferrari, 'Comprehensive study on structure-activity relationships of rifamycins: discussion of molecular and crystal structure and spectroscopic and thermochemical properties of rifamycin O', Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, (1998), 41, 2319-2332).During a post-doctoral period (1995-1996) at the
EMBL in Hamburg I worked on the problem of validation of crystallographic results, with particular attention to the refinement of macromolecular structures, where the number of observations deriving from the crystallographic experiment is generally much lower than the number of parameters necessary to define the molecular model (A. Bacchi, V. S. Lamzin, K. S. Wilson, ‘Self-validation: an extended Hamilton test’, Acta Crystallographica, Section D, Vol. D52, (1996), 641-646).
Crystallographic links
Associazione Italiana di Cristallografia
European Association of Crystallography
International Union of Crystallography