Francesco Squarciotta

I got my Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Bologna, completing a thesis in Applied Microbiology at the Molecular Environmental Microbiology Laboratory.

Later, I earned my Master’s degree in Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology, also at the University of Bologna. My master research project concerned the identification of novel substrates for a recently isolated fungal Oligosaccharide Dehydrogenase using a mixed computational-experimental approach. As part of international and interdisciplinary research project, during my master internship I’ve spent 8 months at the Fungal Biodiversity and Biotechnology Laboratory of Aix-Marseille University. These projects let me develop a strong passion for Biochemistry and Computational Biology and I’m particularly fascinated by Structural Biology, Protein Dynamics and Biocatalysis.

Currently I’m working at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics lab under the supervision of professor Daniele Dell’Orco as a research fellow. My research focuses on the biochemical and biophysical characterization of the E75G variant of the human Guanilate Ciclase Activating Protein 1(GCAP1)  and on the investigation of possible interactions of heavy metals with the mutant protein.