Filizola's research program is mainly focused on G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), which are the targets for about half of all currently used drugs. Special effort in her lab has been devoted to the subfamily of opioid receptors to discover/design novel painkillers with reduced abuse liability and other adverse effects. A second important line of investigation in the Filizola lab is on beta3 integrins towards the discovery of novel therapeutics to treat renal, hematologic, neoplastic, bone, and/or fibrotic diseases.
To obtain rigorous mechanistic insight into the structure, dynamics, and function of GPCRs and beta3 integrins, the Filizola lab uses several computational structural biology tools, ranging from molecular modeling, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, molecular dynamics simulations, a variety of enhanced sampling algorithms, and rational drug design approaches. Much of the work is done in close collaboration with major experimental labs with whom we have established longstanding synergistic ties.
Dr. Filizola is the author of over 100 original papers and chapters in the areas of computational chemistry/biophysics and drug discovery, as well as the editor of 2 books: "G Protein-Coupled Receptors - Modeling and Simulation" and "G Protein-Coupled Receptors in Drug Discovery". She is also an inventor, with a number of patents to her credit.