Varra Michela

Biography

Prof. Michela Varra graduated from the Department of Organic and Biological Chemistry at the University of Naples where she obtained her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry (March 1993 ) of Research in Chemistry ( October 1997 ). Within the three-year period devoted to the acquisition of this title, Dr. Varra Michela has carried out research activities in the field of chemical synthesis of nucleosides, nucleotides and modified oligonucleotides in order to obtain new and versatile synthesis intermediates and new modified nucleotides suitably functionalized for insertion into short fragments of nucleic acids. The latter were useful both for conformational studies of unusual DNA structures and for their potential biological and biotechnological applications. Studies have been published in internationally-indexed, organic and bio-organic chemistry magazines. In 1998 , winner of a post-doctoral scholarship, he pursued his research activity at the Department of Chemistry of Natural Resources at the Faculty of Pharmacy. Here, the research topics dealt with in the previous three years are expanded and completed, even in this case they have materialized with the publication on internationally-indexed journals of the type described above. Since 2000 , winner of a competition for researcher, she has been doing full-time research at the Faculty.

Research Interest

The research activity of Prof. Michela Varra is entirely focused on nucleic acids and is divided into two fundamental themes: the chemical synthesis of modified nucleosides and nucleotides and the preparation and study of oligonucleotides (ON) that can assume unusual conformations .