Eduardo Maria SOMMELLA | Curriculum

Professor Eduardo Maria Sommella, born in Naples on September 12, 1985, earned his degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology from the University of Naples Federico II on July 15, 2009, defending a thesis titled "Design and Synthesis of Compounds with a Dihydroxy-Tetrahydroisoquinoline Core and Potential Analgesic Activity" (advisor: Professor Ettore Novellino).

In 2010, he was awarded a scholarship for the Ph.D. program in Chemistry and Food Safety at the University of Messina under the supervision of Professor Luigi Mondello. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Sommella focused on the development and application of advanced analytical methodologies, particularly using comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography (LC × LC) and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). These techniques were employed for the qualitative and quantitative characterization of pharmacologically active molecules derived from natural, biopharmaceutical, and synthetic matrices, the identification of new molecular targets, and the pharmacokinetic and metabolomic analysis of bioactive molecules both in vitro and in vivo.

From 2013 to 2018, he worked as a research fellow at the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Salerno and the Department of Agriculture of the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria. His research activities were centered on the application of innovative analytical techniques, primarily ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS), for the characterization of phytocomplexes and applications in peptidomics.

In 2018, he undertook a training period at the Institute of Molecular Biology of Plants (IBMP-CNRS) in Strasbourg, France, under the guidance of Professor Dimitri Heintz. There, he advanced his expertise in FT-ICR mass spectrometry applied to metabolomics and lipidomics, as well as spatial distribution analysis of drugs and metabolites using MALDI-Imaging.

From November 2019 to November 2022, he served as a tenure-track assistant professor (RTD-B) in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the DIFARMA Department of the University of Salerno. Since November 2022, he has been an Associate Professor in SSD CHIM/08. As a lecturer, he teaches the courses Pharmaceutical Chemical Analysis 1 (Degree: Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, CTF), Artificial Intelligence in Omics Data Analysis (Degree: Digital Health and Bioinformatic Engineering), and Drug Analysis in Biological Fluids (Degree: CTF).

He is the author of over 100 publications in international scientific journals and numerous presentations at national and international conferences, with an H-index of 26. Currently, Dr. Sommella’s research focuses on the development and application of mass spectrometry-based methodologies (such as UHPLC-HRMS and LC × LC-HRMS), both targeted and untargeted, in metabolomics, lipidomics, and proteomics studies on biofluids and tissues. He also conducts pharmacokinetic analyses of bioactive molecules in vitro and in vivo, natural product characterization, and Mass-Spectrometry Imaging (MALDI-MSI) techniques.