Luisa De Cola is since November 2020 Professor at the University of Milan and part time scientist at the INT-KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany.

She was born in Messina, Italy, where she studied chemistry. After a post-doc in USA she was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna (1990). In 1998 she was appointed Full Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

In 2004 she moved to the University of Muenster, Germany. In 2012 she has been appointed Axa Chair of Supramolecular and Bio-Material Chemistry, at the University of Strasbourg. She is recipients of several awards and recognitions, the most recent being the Izatt–Christensen Award in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (2019), the gold Medal Natta (2020), the Centenary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (2024), the Nitti-Cassas Award and the Ziegler Natta prize 2025. She has been nominated “Chevalier de la Légion d’ Honneur” by the President of the French Republic, François Hollande; elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, of the Accademia dei Lincei and fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

She is the editor in chief of Chemistry Europe.

Her main interests are: supramolecular assemblies, labels for diagnostics, and nano- and porous structures for biomedical applications. She has published more than 400 papers and filed 40 patents. She is the cofounder of the spin-off Bionys, dealing with diagnostics in vitro.