CONFERENCE REPORT
4th Meeting of the Italian Peptide Society (ItPS)
Naples, Italy, 15 June 2022.
The 4th Meeting of the Italian Peptide Society (ItPS) was held on June 15, 2022 in Naples, Centro Congressi (Sala A) of the University of Naples “Federico II”, Via Partenope, 36. The Organizing Committee comprised Antonella Accardo, Daniela Marasco, Giancarlo Morelli (University of Napoli, Federico II) and Michele Saviano (National Research Council (CNR)-IC, Caserta). The Scientific Committee of ItPS Meeting, comprising Marta De Zotti (University of Padua), Mariano Venanzi (University di Rome, Tor Vergata), Alessandro Gori (CNR Milan), Walter Cabri (University of Bologna) oversaw the conference program. The conference had an attendance of seventy Italian scientists, working in academia, research centers and companies with the addition of two foreign guests prof Helma Wennemers (ETH, Zürich) and Ronald T. Raines (MIT-USA). Overall, 30 senior scientists, 27 postdocs and 13 PhD students participated at the conference.
Participants of the 4th Meeting of the Italian Peptide Society.
The program comprised 20 oral presentations, which were grouped in sessions focused on Peptides: i) Peptides as therapeutics; ii) Peptides for cell targeting and biosensing; iii) Peptides conformation and therapy and iv) Peptides supramolecular materials and nanostructures. Among young researchers (<35 years old), a competition for the best presentation was held. The book of abstract can be downloaded at the following link: https://sites.google.com/view/4itps.
At the beginning of the Meeting, on behalf of ItPS, the new President of the Society Maria Luisa Mangoni acknowledged her predecessor Giancarlo Morelli for his consistent commitment made over the years of his mandate in favor of the Society.
Thanksgiving ceremony: Maria Luisa Mangoni and Giancarlo Morelli
During the conference, Maria Luisa Mangoni, Claudio Toniolo and Marta De Zotti presented the Scoffone Award 2022, which commemorates the contributions of Ernesto Scoffone to peptide chemistry and the foundation of the peptide community in Italy. Based on the proposal of the scientific committee that was unanimously accepted by all ItPS members, the award was attributed to Helma Wennemers (ETH Zurich) for her valuable contribution to peptide chemistry, at international level. She gave a lecture entitled: “Asymmetric Catalysis with Peptides”. ItPS community congratulated her for this accomplishment, as further sign of her successful career.
2022 Scoffone award ceremony: Maria Luisa Mangoni and Helma Wennemers
In the concluding remarks, Maria Luisa Mangoni and Daniela Marasco highlighted the joy and importance for returning to a face-to-face Meeting after COVID-19 pandemics of 2020. They underscored the community pride for the high technical-scientific level of presentations and for the high-profile research work of young scientists, so promising for the future of peptide science in Italy. Taking into account the opinion expressed by the Scientific Committee, they conferred “the Highlighted Presentation Award” to Demetra Giuri (University of Bologna) for the quality of her scientific research and for brilliant presentation entitled “Peptides for the preparation of smart supramolecular gels”. Dr Giuri will be outlined in the special issue of Journal of Peptide science dedicated to the 17th Naples Workshop on Bioactive Peptides and will be invited by the editors to contribute to this special volume.
The Highlighted Presentation Award of the 4th ItPS Congress: Maria Luisa Mangoni, Daniela Marasco and Demetra Giuri
Contributed by Daniela Marasco and Maria Luisa Mangoni