1991 Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (Pharmacy)
1995 PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Drugs of natural sources)
2002 Assistant Professor at the University of Siena
1996 Member of the Italian Pharmacological Society
Visiting student or Assistant Professor at: Trinity College, Dublin; Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia; Southern Illinois University, Springfield, IL, USA; University of Cambridge, U.K.
Scientific activity: 56 full papers on international scientific journals, 6 book chapters, 28 abstracts, 67 national and international Meetings.
Experimental research on novel natural as well synthetic modulators of ionic currents in smooth muscle cells.
Isolated organs and patch-clamp technique.
Flavonoids.
Vascular pharmacology.
Pharmacological assays and dosages, Laurea Magistrale in Chimica e Tecnologia Farmaceutiche.
Medical Statistics (Master Avanzato di II livello in Scienza e Tecnologia Cosmetiche)
Simona Saponara, Lara Testai, Donata Iozzi, Enrica Martinotti, Alma Martelli, Silvio Chericoni, Giampietro Sgaragli, Fabio Fusi, Vincenzo Calderone. (+/-)-Naringenin as large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (BKCa) channel opener in vascular smooth muscle cells. Br. J. Pharmacol.149, 1013-1021 (2006).
Simona Saponara, Giampietro Sgaragli, Fabio Fusi. Quercetin antagonism of Bay K 8644 effects on rat tail artery L-type Ca2+ channels. Eur. J. Pharmacol.598, 75-80 (2008).Sergio Bova, Simona Saponara, Angela Rampa, Silvia Gobbi, Lorenzo Cima, Fabio Fusi, Giampietro Sgaragli, Maurizio Cavalli, Cristobal de los Rios, Jörg Striessnig, Alessandra Bisi. Anthracene based compounds as new L-type Ca2+ channel blockers: design, synthesis, and full biological profile. J. Med. Chem.52, 1259-1262 (2009).
Roberta Budriesi, Barbara Cosimelli, Pierfranco Ioan, Maria Paola Ugenti, Emanuele Carosati, Maria Frosini, Fabio Fusi, Raffaella Spisani, Simona Saponara, Gabriele Cruciani, Ettore Novellino, Domenico Spinelli, Alberto Chiarini. L-Type calcium channel blockers: from diltiazem to 1,2,4-oxadiazol-5-ones via thiazinooxadiazol-3-one derivatives. J. Med. Chem.52, 2352-2362 (2009).
Fabio Fusi, Maurizio Cavalli, Dulcie Mulholland, Neil Crouch, Phil Coombes, Gill Dawson, Sergio Bova, Giampietro Sgaragli, Simona Saponara. Cardamonin is a bifunctional vasodilator that inhibits Cav1.2 current and stimulates KCa1.1 current in rat tail artery myocytes. J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther.332, 531-540 (2010).
Simona Saponara, Emanuele Carosati, Paolo Mugnai, Giampietro Sgaragli, Fabio Fusi. The flavonoid scaffold as a template for the design of modulators of the vascular Cav1.2 channels. Br. J. Pharmacol.164, 1684-1697 (2011).
Fabio Fusi, Giampietro Sgaragli, Le M. Ha, Nguyen M. Cuong, Simona Saponara. Mechanism of osthole inhibition of vascular Cav1.2 current. Eur. J. Pharmacol.680, 22-27 (2012).
Simona Saponara, Fabio Fusi, Giampietro Sgaragli, Maurizio Cavalli, Brian Hopkins, Sergio Bova. Effects of commonly used protein kinase inhibitors on vascular contraction and L-type Ca2+ current. Biochem. Pharmacol.84, 1055-1061 (2012).
Miriam Durante, Giampietro Sgaragli, Lucia Biasutto, Andrea Mattarei, Fabio Fusi. Quercetin mitochondriotropic derivatives antagonize nitrate tolerance and endothelial dysfunction of isolated rat aorta rings. Planta Med.79, 465-467 (2013).
Donata Iozzi, Rudolf Schubert, Vjatscheslav U. Kalenchuk, Annalisa Neri, Giampietro Sgaragli, Fabio Fusi, Simona Saponara. Quercetin relaxes rat tail main artery partly via a PKG-mediated stimulation of KCa1.1 channels. Acta Physiol. in press (2013).