Sandro Mecozzi

Sandro Mecozzi is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, affiliated with the School of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, and the Chemistry Biology Interface Training Grant. His research focuses on fundamental studies of non-covalent interactions and their applications in biochemical and biomedical contexts.

• Education: B.S./M.S. (Laurea) from the First University of Rome “La Sapienza” (1988), Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology (1996), and postdoctoral training at Scripps Research Institute.

Research Areas:

• Investigation of the fluorous phase in highly fluorinated materials, including self-assembling amphiphilic molecules for drug delivery systems targeting the brain and anticancer therapies.
• Computational modeling of intermolecular forces using ab initio calculations and molecular dynamics simulations to understand phase separation and thermodynamic stability.
• RNA-small molecule complexes, computational design of short RNAs for selective binding, and dynamic combinatorial approaches to RNA recognition.

Labs & Collaborations: Leads the Mecozzi Group at the Wisconsin Center for NanoBioSystems, integrating chemical synthesis and computational techniques to explore biomedical applications.