Giuseppina De Simone was born in Naples, Italy, and graduated in chemistry at the University of Naples Federico II (1993). She worked from August 1994 to January 1995 at the Drug Design Group?-Sandoz Pharma AG? in Basel, and from September 1995 to February 1996 at the University of Pavia. From November 1996 to January 1997 she was visiting scientist at the Max Plank Institute- Hamburg Germany. In 1998 she received her PhD at the University of Naples. Since 2003, she is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging (IBB) of the Italian National Research Council. Her main research interests include X-ray crystallography of macromolecules, structure based drug design, carbonic anhydrases, serine proteases, esterases/lipases, peptide nucleic acids. She has published more than 90 papers in these fields.