Paola Luciani

Paola Luciani (she/her) is Full Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, since 2019. She obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, and subsequently worked as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Research Center for Colloids and Surface Science of the University of Florence, Italy. In 2009 she joined the Drug Formulation and Delivery group headed by Prof. JC Leroux at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, as postdoctoral scientist and as group leader. In 2015 she was appointed Associate Professor for Phospholipids in Drug Development at the Institute of Pharmacy of the University of Jena, Germany (endowed professorship financially supported by Lipoid GmbH). In 2017 she has been named Emerging Investigator 2017 by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In 2021 the Agency Council of Swissmedic elected her specialist of the Human Medicines Expert Committee (HMEC).

Since 2020 Paola is Director of Study of the Bachelor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of UniBern.

She is Faculty member of the Equal Opportunities Commission, role she formerly had also at the University of Jena (2016- 2019). In 2018-2019 she was mentor of the online STEM mentoring platforms for female pupils Cybermentor.de, since 2020 mentor in the SCS Swiss Women in Chemistry Mentorship Program and since 2022 mentor in the EPSA (European Pharmaceutical Students Association) Mentoring Project.

Since 2019 she is invited member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Phospholipid Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. Since 2023 she is invited member of the Steering Committee of the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Platform of the University of Bern. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal OpenNano since 2022; she served as Associate Editor of the journal Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports (Elsevier) in the years 2016-2018; she was guest member of the APV Focus Group Drug Delivery (2017-2021).

Research Interests

Prof. Luciani´s research focuses on the design and characterization of lipid-derived and bio-inspired drug delivery systems for the treatment and diagnosis of chronic multifactorial diseases, such as fibrosis, endometriosis and inflammatory diseases.
Together with her interdisciplinary team of pharmacists, chemists, biochemists and engineers, she investigates novel approaches to achieve sustained drug delivery, including additive manufacturing.