Role and Contribution
The CNR group is equipped for and has experience in the Structural Biology of proteins through X-ray diffraction. The whole group consists of 11 people, 10 of whom are directly involved in protein structure analysis, protein chemistry, enzymology and molecular biology methods related to protein expression. The group is completely equipped for what concerns in house expression, purification, crystallization (including robotics), X-ray diffraction and data collection, crystallographic computing and molecular modeling. The INFM laboratories currently supported by several national scientific programs (all centered on protein structural biology), as well as by a EU FP5 project on human heme proteins, which associates five European laboratories and one form Israel (IP M. Bolognesi).
M. Bolognesi is full Professor of Biophysics at the University of Genova. His activity has been constantly focused on X-ray protein structure analysis, as witnessed by 106 current entries in the PDB. He is author of 260 papers on international peer reviewed Journals on the same topics.
M. Nardini is research associate of the National Institute for the Physics of Matter, in charge of crystallization and structure solution methods.
Alessandra Pesce is a post-doc fellow, in charge of crystal growth and refinement techniques.
M. Milani is a post-doc fellow in charge of dynamics and simulation methods.
S. Zuccotti and
D. de Sanctis are graduate students in charge of crystallization methods and crystallization robotics.