DrMonica De Gaetano

Dr Monica de Gaetano is a Year 4 Ad Astra Fellow, Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Pharmacology at the School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science in University College Dublin (UCD). She has previously covered for a year a role as Assistant Professor in Cell Biology & Genetics at UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science. She is also one of the Principal Investigators at the Diabetes Complications Research Centre (DCRC) at UCD, been awarded a 4-years funded Research Ireland-Pathway grant. Her research career-to-date lies at the interface between Cell & Molecular Biology, Immunology, Pharmacology and Medicinal Biochemistry. Her research focuses on the discovery and translational development of novel bioactive molecules. She has a long-standing interest in endogenously generated compounds promoting the resolution of inflammation. She is interested in unravelling the underlying molecular mechanisms and the genetic susceptibility of prevalent chronic inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis and macrovascular complications of diabetes. Her research goal is to develop novel and personalised theranostic avenues in diabetes-associated atherosclerosis. More recently, through the UCD STEM challenge award, she gained interest in exploring the delivery of resolving molecules to the site of inflammation, via lipid nano particles-based systems, with the idea -in future- to design a site-specific drug delivery to macrophages in athero-prone regions of the vessel walls.

Her education and research activity comprises a BSc (Hons) in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, obtained in 2007 at the School of Pharmacy of ‘La Sapienza’ University in Rome (Italy), with a thesis in Cardiovascular Genetic Epidemiology. She then moved to Ireland to pursue a PhD in the Molecular Biology of Atherosclerosis at the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science. Her postgraduate degree was followed by a 6-yrs postdoctoral training in the Molecular Biology of Macrovascular Complications of Diabetes, at the Diabetes Complications Research Centre (DCRC), based in the UCD Conway Institute, joining the School of Medicine. During this time, she was also awarded a 2-years Post-Doc fellowship from the Irish Research Council/Government of Ireland.

Monica has been acting as President of the Irish Association of Pharmacologists for the past 2 years, after acting as VP of the association for a year.