Tullia Tedeschi

Tullia Tedeschi was born in Parma in 1974. In 1999 she got her Master Degree in Chemistry at the University of Parma (Italy). In 2004 she got her Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at the same University under the supervision of Prof. Rosangela Marchelli. Before starting her PhD studies, she spent a period of time studing and working at the University of Copenhagen, in Prof. Peter Nielsen’s group ( from september 1999 until dicember 2000). From februrary 2004 to november 2005 she held a post-doctoral position at the Department of Organic and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Parma, where in novenber 2005 she became Research Associate. She is member of the Italian Chemical Society and in particular of the Organic Chemistry and Biological Systems Chemistry division, and of the Food Chemistry interdiviosional group.

Teaching activities
Tullia Tedeschi teaches “Organic Chemistry ” for the Bachelor Degree in Gastronomic Science at The University of Parma. She acts as instructor and coordinator in the development and execution of research projects for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in Chemical, Food and Biotechnological Sciences.

Research activities
Research activity of Dr.Tedeschi is principally focused on the synthesis and molecular recogntion
properties of organic molecules with a particolar interest in the biological and food science fields.
The research topics in wich she is mainly involved are synthetic organic chemistry and bioorganic
chemistry.
In details:
1) Synthesis of new PNA monomers and buiding blocks.
New compounds have been designed, obtained and used in development of solid phase of modified PNAs,
in particular with the aim of obtaining new molecules with improved optical purity and binding properties.
The characterization of the new molecules is performed by NMR, IR, UV-Vis, HPLC-MS and chiral GC-MS.
2) Binding properties studies of these new PNA molecules syntheized towards DNA and RNA
oligonucleotides.
Dr. Tedeschi is involved in studing binding performances of PNA molecules by using several techniques:
UV-Vis melting temperatures, CD spectroscopy for structural analysis of complexes in solution, MS
spectrometry for characterization in gas phase, Microarrays technology for studing PNA complexes on
surfaces.
3) Application of some modified chiral PNA molecules for the specific recognition of biological targets.
PNA probes designed, synthesized and chracterized in steps 1 and 2, were obtained for different
application fields. In particular modified PNAs has been used for the selective recognition of SNPs ( single
nucleotide polymorphisms) involved in deseases, such as Cistic Fibrosis and Alzheimer and for the varietal
characterization of vegetals ( tomatoes, olive oil).
Moreover modified PNAs mimicking a peptide sequence have been used for cellular internationalization
studies.
PNAs with chiral modifications have shown also improved performances in targeting genomic
double-strand DNA.
These application studies have been perfomed by using different techiques such as: capillary
electrophoresis, gel-electrophoresis shift and microarrys techology.
4) Development of solid phase synthesis protocols for the synthesis of PNAs conjugated with organic
fluorophores
Beacons and switch on probes obtained are characterized by spectrofluorimetry and their binding
properties towards DNA and RNA complementary strands are also evaluated.
Application of these fluorescent probes have been perfomed with the aim of constructing molecular
diagnostic platforms for food safety field, in particular for GMO's, food allergens and food pathonges.
5) Development of solid phase protcols for the synthesis of peptide sequences contained in food proteins.
In the food research field Dr. Tedeschi is involved in the design and synthesis of peptide sequences which
are part of food proteins and which are known to play important functions ( bioactive peptides) and
eventually cause undesired effects ( allergenic peptides). She is also studing their characterization by
using LC-MS and NMR techniques.
Tullia Tedeschi is author of 49 publications on international scientific journals and books distributed in this
way:
37 publications on jorunals with Impact Factor
4 publications without Impact Factor
3 contributions on book chapters (with ISBN)
5 contributions on conference proceedings (with ISBN)