Maria Carafa

Prof. M. Carafa is currently Full Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, Department of Drug Chemistry and Technology, “Sapienza” University of Rome. She obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the “Sapienza” University of Rome in 1992.

She was assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of “Sapienza” University of Rome from 1991 to 2001. From 2001 to 2008 she was associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at University “G. d’Annunzio” (Chieti) and from 2008 to February 2020 at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, Department of Drug Chemistry and Technology, “Sapienza” University of Rome.

She started her scientific carrier working in the field of pharmaceutical technology, regarding the development of prolonged/controlled drug delivery systems based on natural polysaccharides. In last years she focused her research on the preparation and the characterization of vesicular systems. Phospholipid and surfactant vesicles and pH-sensitive vesicles were studied as drug delivery systems for several pharmaceutical applications: topical, ophthalmic, diagnostic, pulmonary, oral, drug delivery in CNS disorders and cellular targeting. Recently she focused her researches on deep physical-chemical characterization of nanocarriers, on preparation of mixed systems polymer/vesicles, nanoemulsions and nanobubbles for different therapeutic, diagnotic and theranostic applications.