Luisa De Cola Awarded 2024 Centenary Prize for Chemistry and Communication

Luisa De Cola, Professor at the University of Milan and Head of the Materials for Health Unit at the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri (IRCCS), Milan, Italy, has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) 2024 Centenary Prize for Chemistry and Communication for her “innovative studies on how photophysically active materials and nanostructures may be fabricated for deployment within active biological systems targeting future healthcare solutions, and for excellence in communication”.

Laureates are invited to deliver a series of prize lectures at universities across the UK and Ireland and receive cash prizes and a medal.

Luisa De Cola’s research integrates chemistry, biology, and medicine to develop innovative therapies and diagnostic tools. Her team is creating nanocontainers for targeted drug delivery, including potential cancer treatments, and luminescent nanostructures for highly sensitive pathogen detection. Her primary focus includes diagnostic labels, self-assembling metal complexes, and nano/porous structures for biomedical applications.

Luisa De Cola, born in Messina, Italy, studied chemistry at the University of Messina, graduating in 1983. She began a postdoctoral fellowship in the group of Professor Lidia Vallarino at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA, in 1984. She returned to Italy in 1986 to join the group of Professor Vincenzo Balzani, University of Bologna, as a Researcher of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). In 1990, De Cola was promoted to Assistant Professor at the same university. From 1998–2004, she was a Full Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In 2004, she joined the faculty at the University of Münster, Germany, and became a member of the board of the Center for Nanotechnology, Münster, Germany. In 2012, she was appointed Axa Chair of Supramolecular and Bio-Material Chemistry, at the University of Strasbourg/ISIS, France

Currently, she is a professor at the University of Milan and head of the Materials for Health Unit at the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri (IRCCS), Milan, Italy. She is also a visiting scientist at the Institute of Functional Interfaces at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (IFG-KIT), Germany.

Among her awards are the ERC advanced grant (2010), the Izatt–Christensen Award in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (2019), and the Gold Medal Natta (2020). She was Nominated Chevalier de la Légion d’ Honneur by the then-President of France, François Hollande. She is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, of the Accademia dei Lincei, Italy, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a Chemistry Europe Fellow.

Luisa De Cola has published more than 400 papers, filed 40 patents, and is Editor in Chief of ChemistryEurope, the flagship gold open access journal of Chemistry Europe.