Angela Casini is Chair of Medicinal and Bioinorganic Chemistry at Cardiff University. She completed her PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Florence (Italy) in 2004, and, afterwards, moved to EPFL (Switzerland) as senior scientist funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Between 2011-2015 she has been assistant professor at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), holding a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship, before taking up her current professor position at Cardiff University in October 2015. Since then she also maintains the role of guest professor at the University of Groningen. Her research focuses on the study of the role of metal ions in biological systems and of the mechanisms of action of metal-based therapeutics (e.g. anticancer agents). Furthermore, novel applications for metal-based chemical entities, including supramolecular self-assembled metallocages, are explored in various domains of chemical biology, bio-analytical chemistry, drug delivery and physiology.
Selected Awards
2016, Member of the Young European Academy
2016, Visiting professorship at Colorado State University (Fort Collins, US)
2016, August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professorship (Technical University of Munich)
2014, Listed by Thomson Reuters as one of the “Worlds most influential scientific minds” in the field of Pharmacology
2014, Early career investigator at the Gordon Research Conference Metals In Medicine “New Frontiers”
2014, Visiting professorship at the University of Sassari (Sassari, Italy)
2013, Visiting professorship at the University of Burgundy (Dijon, France)
2012, European Medal for Biological Inorganic Chemistry (EUROBIC11 award -11th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Conference), Granada, Spain
Research Interests
Metal complexes, organometallics, supramolecular chemistry, cancer, proteins, nucleic acids, drug design, biophysical methods, in vitro, in silico, ex vivo precision cut tissue slices.
Selected Publications
2016
Bazzicalupi, Carla; Ferraroni, Marta; Papi, Francesco; Massai, Lara; Bertrand, Benoît; Messori, Luigi; Gratteri, Paola; Casini, Angela: Determinants for Tight and Selective Binding of a Medicinal Dicarbene Gold(I) Complex to a Telomeric DNA G-Quadruplex: a Joint ESI MS and XRD Investigation. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 55 (13), 2016, 4256-4259.
Meier, Samuel M.; Gerner, Christopher; Keppler, Bernhard K.; Cinellu, Maria Agostina; Casini, Angela: Mass Spectrometry Uncovers Molecular Reactivities of Coordination and Organometallic Gold(III) Drug Candidates in Competitive Experiments That Correlate with Their Biological Effects. Inorganic Chemistry 55 (9), 2016, 4248-4259.
Schmidt, Andrea; Molano, Viviana; Hollering, Manuela; Pöthig, Alexander; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: Evaluation of New Palladium Cages as Potential Delivery Systems for the Anticancer Drug Cisplatin. Chemistry - A European Journal 22 (7), 2016, 2253-2256.
Wenzel, Margot; de Almeida, Andreia; Bigaeva, Emilia; Kavanagh, Paul; Picquet, Michel; Le Gendre, Pierre; Bodio, Ewen; Casini, Angela: New Luminescent Polynuclear Metal Complexes with Anticancer Properties: Toward Structure–Activity Relationships. Inorganic Chemistry 55 (5), 2016, 2544-2557.
de Almeida, A.; Martins, A. P.; Mósca, A. F.; Wijma, H. J.; Prista, C.; Soveral, G.; Casini, A.: Exploring the gating mechanisms of aquaporin-3: new clues for the design of inhibitors? Mol. BioSyst. 12 (5), 2016, 1564-1573.
2015
Laskay, Ü. A.; Garino, C.; Tsybin, Y. O.; Salassa, L.; Casini, A.: Gold finger formation studied by high-resolution mass spectrometry and in silico methods. Chem. Commun. 51 (9), 2015, 1612-1615.
2014
de Almeida, Andreia; Soveral, Graça; Casini, Angela: Gold compounds as aquaporin inhibitors: new opportunities for therapy and imaging. Med. Chem. Commun. 5 (10), 2014, 1444-1453.
2013
de Almeida, Andreia; Oliveira, Bruno L.; Correia, João D.G.; Soveral, Graça; Casini, Angela: Emerging protein targets for metal-based pharmaceutical agents: An update. Coordination Chemistry Reviews 257 (19-20), 2013, 2689-2704.
2011
Mendes, Filipa; Groessl, Michael; Nazarov, Alexey A.; Tsybin, Yury O.; Sava, Gianni; Santos, Isabel; Dyson, Paul J.; Casini, Angela: Metal-Based Inhibition of Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase − The Guardian Angel of DNA. J. Med. Chem. 54 (7), 2011, 2196-2206.
Oberkofler, Jens; Aikman, Brech; Bonsignore, Riccardo; Pöthig, Alexander; Platts, James; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: Exploring the Reactivity and Biological Effects of Heteroleptic N-Heterocyclic Carbene Gold(I)-Alkynyl Complexes. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2020 more…BibTeX
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2019
Pöthig, Alexander; Casini, Angela: Recent Developments of Supramolecular Metal-based Structures for Applications in Cancer Therapy and Imaging. Theranostics 9 (11), 2019, 3150-3169 more…BibTeX
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2018
Casini, Angela; Bonsignore, Riccardo; Oberkofler, Jens: Organometallic Gold-Based Anticancer Therapeutics. In: Reference Module in Chemistry, Molecular Sciences and Chemical Engineering. Elsevier, 2018 more…BibTeX
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Han, Jiaying; Räder, Andreas F. B.; Reichart, Florian; Aikman, Brech; Wenzel, Margot N.; Woods, Ben; Weinmüller, Michael; Ludwig, Beatrice S.; Stürup, Stefan; Groothuis, Geny M. M.; Permentier, Hjalmar P.; Bischoff, Rainer; Kessler, Horst; Horvatovich, Peter; Casini, Angela: Bioconjugation of Supramolecular Metallacages to Integrin Ligands for Targeted Delivery of Cisplatin. Bioconjugate Chemistry 29 (11), 2018, 3856-3865 more…BibTeX
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Jurgens, Sophie; Kuhn, Fritz E.; Casini, Angela: Cyclometalated Complexes of Platinum and Gold with Biological Properties: State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives. Current Medicinal Chemistry 25 (4), 2018, 437-461 more…BibTeX
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Wragg, Darren; de Almeida, Andreia; Bonsignore, Riccardo; Kühn, Fritz E.; Leoni, Stefano; Casini, Angela: On the Mechanism of Gold/NHC Compounds Binding to DNA G-Quadruplexes: Combined Metadynamics and Biophysical Methods. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 57 (44), 2018, 14524-14528 more…BibTeX
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2017
Casini, Angela; Woods, Benjamin; Wenzel, Margot: The Promise of Self-Assembled 3D Supramolecular Coordination Complexes for Biomedical Applications. Inorganic Chemistry 56 (24), 2017, 14715-14729 more…BibTeX
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Han, J.; Schmidt, A.; Zhang, T.; Permentier, H.; Groothuis, G. M. M.; Bischoff, R.; Kühn, F. E.; Horvatovich, P.; Casini, A.: Bioconjugation strategies to couple supramolecular exo-functionalized palladium cages to peptides for biomedical applications. Chemical Communications 53 (8), 2017, 1405-1408 more…BibTeX
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Jürgens, Sophie; Casini, Angela: Mechanistic Insights into Gold Organometallic Compounds and their Biomedical Applications. CHIMIA International Journal for Chemistry 71 (3), 2017, 92-101 more…BibTeX
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Jürgens, Sophie; Scalcon, Valeria; Estrada-Ortiz, Natalia; Folda, Alessandra; Tonolo, Federica; Jandl, Christian; Browne, Duncan L.; Rigobello, Maria Pia; Kühn, Fritz E.; Casini, Angela: Exploring the C^N^C theme: Synthesis and biological properties of tridentate cyclometalated gold(III) complexes. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry 25 (20), 2017, 5452-5460 more…BibTeX
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Karaca, Özden; Meier-Menches, Samuel M.; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: On the binding modes of metal NHC complexes with DNA secondary structures: implications for therapy and imaging. Chemical Communications 53 (59), 2017, 8249-8260 more…BibTeX
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Karaca, Özden; Scalcon, Valeria; Meier-Menches, Samuel M.; Bonsignore, Riccardo; Brouwer, Jurriaan M. J. L.; Tonolo, Federica; Folda, Alessandra; Rigobello, Maria Pia; Kühn, Fritz E.; Casini, Angela: Characterization of Hydrophilic Gold(I) N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) Complexes as Potent TrxR Inhibitors Using Biochemical and Mass Spectrometric Approaches. Inorganic Chemistry 56 (22), 2017, 14237-14250 more…BibTeX
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Wenzel, Margot; Casini, Angela: Mass spectrometry as a powerful tool to study therapeutic metallodrugs speciation mechanisms: Current frontiers and perspectives. Coordination Chemistry Reviews 352, 2017, 432-460 more…BibTeX
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2016
Bazzicalupi, Carla; Ferraroni, Marta; Papi, Francesco; Massai, Lara; Bertrand, Benoît; Messori, Luigi; Gratteri, Paola; Casini, Angela: Determinants for Tight and Selective Binding of a Medicinal Dicarbene Gold(I) Complex to a Telomeric DNA G-Quadruplex: a Joint ESI MS and XRD Investigation. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 55 (13), 2016, 4256-4259 more…BibTeX
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Hahn, Eva M.; Estrada-Ortiz, Natalia; Han, Jiaying; Ferreira, Vera F. C.; Kapp, Tobias G.; Correia, João D. G.; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: Functionalization of Ruthenium(II) Terpyridine Complexes with Cyclic RGD Peptides To Target Integrin Receptors in Cancer Cells. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry 2017 (12), 2016, 1667-1672 more…BibTeX
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Meier, Samuel M.; Gerner, Christopher; Keppler, Bernhard K.; Cinellu, Maria Agostina; Casini, Angela: Mass Spectrometry Uncovers Molecular Reactivities of Coordination and Organometallic Gold(III) Drug Candidates in Competitive Experiments That Correlate with Their Biological Effects. Inorganic Chemistry 55 (9), 2016, 4248-4259 more…BibTeX
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Schmidt, Andrea; Hollering, Manuela; Drees, Markus; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: Supramolecular exo-functionalized palladium cages: fluorescent properties and biological activity. Dalton Trans. 45 (20), 2016, 8556-8565 more…BibTeX
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Schmidt, Andrea; Molano, Viviana; Hollering, Manuela; Pöthig, Alexander; Casini, Angela; Kühn, Fritz E.: Evaluation of New Palladium Cages as Potential Delivery Systems for the Anticancer Drug Cisplatin. Chemistry - A European Journal 22 (7), 2016, 2253-2256 more…BibTeX
Full text (
DOI
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Wenzel, Margot; de Almeida, Andreia; Bigaeva, Emilia; Kavanagh, Paul; Picquet, Michel; Le Gendre, Pierre; Bodio, Ewen; Casini, Angela: New Luminescent Polynuclear Metal Complexes with Anticancer Properties: Toward Structure-Activity Relationships. Inorganic Chemistry 55 (5), 2016, 2544-2557 more…BibTeX
Full text (
DOI
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de Almeida, A.; Martins, A. P.; Mósca, A. F.; Wijma, H. J.; Prista, C.; Soveral, G.; Casini, A.: Exploring the gating mechanisms of aquaporin-3: new clues for the design of inhibitors? Mol. BioSyst. 12 (5), 2016, 1564-1573 more…BibTeX
Full text (
DOI
)