Professor Luisa De Cola

I always loved science, but in particular physics, biology and astronomy. I was just very curious and loved very small things such atoms and tiny shining points in the sky, stars and planets. Chemistry gave me the understanding and creativity to combine atoms and molecules to construct large systems with incredible properties. I guess part of the responsibility goes to my high school professor.

I have to confess that I am very lucky since I was always mentored by fantastic scientists. But there are two people who played a major role in my life: Lidia Vallarino, my postdoc supervisor and Vincenzo Balzani, with whom I worked at the beginning of my career and offered the first position at the University of Bologna. However, strong personalities such as George Whitesides, Robert Langer and Jean-Marie Lehn have influenced dramatically my way of thinking and to do science.

I do the most beautiful job that one can imagine. I can create my own research, work with brilliant young minds and exchange ideas and knowledge with my collaborators! My enthusiasm is definitely in the search of something that can one day save lives and improve the way we live and die. I love learning new things with my students and, in particular, understanding processes and cross barriers. Fundamental research is essential to build my more applied research.

Being curious, get excited for each small discovery and never give up! Work at the interface with other disciplines, understand what is needed to solve a problem and work in a team to reach a solution. Studying and reading and encourage the youngest. Never be afraid to explain what you think.

I am excited about targeting. Based on molecular recognition, a concept we as chemists use for different aspects, targeting specific genes, cells, and tissues is of great importance today. Artificial Intelligence is helping, but the final realisation is at the interface between chemistry and biology, and even though there are very creative examples for targeting the immunosystem, cancer cells, proteins/peptides we are not there yet, but the output will be incredible.

Chemistry is everything! We are alive thanks to chemistry, enjoying tasty food, fighting diseases, producing energy, wearing wonderful clothes of more and more sophisticated materials, even recycled! We could not exist in a world without chemistry, so please make sure that we state that our ham, chocolate, shoes, aspirin and everything we touch contains chemistry!

A period in my career that I have enjoyed immensely was the collaboration with Philips Research, Hans Hofstraat and Klemens Brunner, and the breakthrough we made together in the field of organic light-emitting diodes, where I worked at the begin of my career. For the first time I was working on a ‘need’ and following innovative yet applied strategies.

The biggest challenge is to break barriers. In the past, as for many women, was to make sure that your male colleagues listen to you! Now, the hardest challenge is to convince the scientists that we need to work together: chemists, physicists, biologists, medical doctors, engineers. At the moment, in Italy, my dream is to convince medical professionals that, in a hospital, we must have scientists of all these disciplines to solve clinical needs.

Chemical sciences are fundamental for where we are today and how we live. Certainly, everyone easily understands that we can have a better quality of life with new drugs and tools, perform reactions that were impossible with catalysts, or survive to pandemics with vaccines. We can have fantastic materials to construct cars, airplanes, houses, or streets. We can grow better plants and have different flowers. We have progressed in the understanding of our body and how macroscopic properties can be tuned by the choice and arrangement of molecules.

It is impossible to be a chemist in a lab and alone progress in science. Complexity in science is the basis for the most important challenges, and we must work together to be able to combine disciplines but also ways of thinking to achieve important goals. And sometimes, it is not enough to have scientists on board. For example, we have the problem of microplastics. Medical doctors are alarmed by the cases that are growing due to the presence of such fragments in the body. But this is not a medical problem. It is a chemical, an engineering, a biological but also a political, economical and eventually a government issue.

My favorite element is oxygen. Not only because we need it to live but because it regulates so many processes and makes so many compounds that it is hard to avoid it! I am fascinated by hypoxia and by the fact that our brain cannot work properly if we do not pump enough of it. I guess that during COVID, dioxygen was the most tested molecule in our body!