Francesco Colizzi earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies from the University of Bologna (UniBo), completing his master’s thesis in molecular modeling at ETH Zurich. He obtained his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from UniBo (2009), with research in computational medicinal chemistry that included work at UCSF on the automation of molecular docking screenings (DockBlaster).

As a postdoctoral researcher at SISSA, he investigated RNA biophysics and developed computational procedures for RNA-based antibacterial drug discovery, supported by independent funding and a collaboration with the Université de Sherbrooke. After a sabbatical stay in Quebec (Canada), he joined IRB Barcelona as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie researcher, where he contributed to interdisciplinary studies in computational chemistry and biophysics, and developed enhanced sampling approaches to accelerate fragment-based drug discovery.

As a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), he founded the Molecular Ocean Lab (https://molecularocean.csic.es/), integrating molecular simulations, artificial intelligence, and marine sciences, with a focus on plastic pollution, drug discovery, and molecular ecology. In 2022, he obtained a permanent position at CSIC and, since 2024, continues his research at IQAC-CSIC.

Francesco enjoys teaching and mentoring students from multiple disciplines, and actively participates in science outreach activities with educational centers, in addition to organizing educational and open science events in Barcelona.