Filippo Romiti, Ph.D., assistant professor, was recruited in 2021 to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas from the Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute at the University of Strasbourg. Dr. Romiti is from the small village of Serricciolo in Lunigiana, Italy. He received his M.Sc. degree in Pharmacy with summa cum laude from the Università degli Studi di Parma in 2011. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in June 2015. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston College from July 2015 until December 2018. In January 2019, Romiti started his position as Senior Research Associate at the Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute at the University of Strasbourg, France.The Romiti Lab is a synthetic organic group at the in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas. Nature is incredibly efficient is synthesizing complex molecules. Many of those compounds showcase the ability to treat human diseases, including the capability to kill cancer cells. Anti-cancer natural products can be identified in screening studies; however, they are often isolated in minute amount, and researchers must rely on chemical synthesis to access large quantities of these bioactive natural products for biological testing and pharmacological studies.

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Filippo Romiti, Ph.D., assistant professor, was recruited in 2021 to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas from the Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute at the University of Strasbourg. Dr. Romiti is from the small village of Serricciolo in Lunigiana, Italy. He received his M.Sc. degree in Pharmacy with summa cum laude from the Università degli Studi di Parma in 2011. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in June 2015. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston College from July 2015 until December 2018. In January 2019, Romiti started his position as Senior Research Associate at the Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute at the University of Strasbourg, France.The Romiti Lab is a synthetic organic group at the in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas. Nature is incredibly efficient is synthesizing complex molecules. Many of those compounds showcase the ability to treat human diseases, including the capability to kill cancer cells. Anti-cancer natural products can be identified in screening studies; however, they are often isolated in minute amount, and researchers must rely on chemical synthesis to access large quantities of these bioactive natural products for biological testing and pharmacological studies. Dr. Romiti plans to develop concise, scalable, versatile, and practical synthesis of anti-cancer natural products to access large quantities of these bioactive compounds and analogues thereof for biological testing and drug discovery. His goal is to devise novel synthesis approaches and methods that allow access to complex bioactive products and their analogues aiming for the ideality.  To accomplish this goal, the team focuses on developing creative strategies and new chemical methods to access the complex natural products more efficiently from simple and inexpensive starting materials.

Dr. Romiti's ultimate goal is to prepare large amounts of anti-cancer natural products and analogues thereof for his collaborators to conduct biological studies to determine their efficacy and mechanism of action. Dr. Romiti intends to explore the possibility of using those compounds in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), which represent a new frontier in the fight against cancer. He acknowledges that CPRIT funding was critical to setting up his lab and to establishing his research program with motivated, curious and ambitious people.

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