Pasquale Stano

Pasquale Stano is an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry (CHIM/06) at the University of Salento, where he has been employed since November 1, 2016. He is affiliated with the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, working at the Ecotekne Center in Lecce, Italy. His research spans multiple interdisciplinary fields at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Stano's research interests focus on Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Systems Chemistry, and Artificial Life, with particular emphasis on developing chemical approaches to artificial intelligence. His work explores how synthetic cells can serve as platforms for wetware computing and how biological principles can inform new paradigms in AI. He investigates molecular communication, self-organization processes, and the construction of artificial cells with cognitive capabilities.

His recent publications demonstrate a clear trend toward integrating synthetic biology with artificial intelligence, particularly through the development of chemical neural networks within synthetic cells. His research shows how bottom-up approaches to creating artificial cells can lead to systems capable of information processing, environmental sensing, and even rudimentary cognition. This work bridges traditionally separate fields, creating new interdisciplinary connections between chemistry, biology, computer science, and engineering.

• Winner of the 2021 Cozzarelli Prize (National Academy of Science, USA) in Class I (Physical and Mathematical Sciences)

Dr. Stano leads the Org(SB-EAI) project (PRIN 2022), which focuses on an organizational approach to synthetic modeling of cognition based on synthetic biology and embodied AI. He has organized multiple satellite workshops at ALIFE conferences on topics including molecular communication approaches for wetware artificial life and synthetic biology's contributions to artificial intelligence. His research group actively collaborates across disciplinary boundaries, connecting chemists, biologists, computer scientists, and engineers to explore the frontiers of wetware computing and artificial life.

Based at the Ecotekne Center, Dr. Stano's research group operates at the intersection of chemistry and biology, with a particular focus on creating synthetic cellular systems that can process information in ways analogous to biological cognition. His laboratory investigates how chemical systems can exhibit computational properties and how these properties might be harnessed for novel computing paradigms.