Research Topics:


Advanced methods for recombinant production of challenging proteins

The increasing complexity of biological targets subject to structural characterization constantly demands highly versatile approaches of recombinantly expression and purification. When targeting macromolecular complexes, the difficulties associated to the initial recombinant screening phase are further amplified by the need to identify suitable constructs to co- express or reconstitute in vitro the molecular interactions essential for complex stabilization. Large industry-scale high-throughput platforms offer extremely efficient and automated methods to obtain libraries of protein constructs for expression and purification scouting, whereas several academic research labs still rely on more conservative "one construct, one recombinant host, one target" approaches. Frequently, the choice depends on investments in automation, as the costs associated to creation of high-throughput facilities are not affordable to all research groups. Aiming at minimizing time and costs associated to the initial screening for recombinant expression, we optimized cloning and expression strategies to increase the throughput without the need for automation, and we coupled them to an advanced facility which includes bacterial, yeast, insect, and mammalian cell expression hosts.

HEK293 cells grown in suspension in our mammalian cell protein expression laboratory, part of the recombinant protein facility we established. HEK293 cells grown in suspension in our mammalian cell protein expression laboratory, part of the recombinant protein facility we established.

Publications:


Active Grants related to this research:

  • NextGenerationEU Program - National Reprise and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Partenariato Esteso Malattie Infettive Emergenti - INF-ACT Foundation NextGenerationEU Program - National Reprise and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Partenariato Esteso Malattie Infettive Emergenti - INF-ACT Foundation
  • Piano Operativo Salute (POS), Traiettoria 4 (Biotecnologia, bioinformatica e sviluppo farmaceutico) - Immuno-Hub Project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Health
  • Programmi di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) - PRIN PNRR 2022
  • Velux Stiftung Ophtalmology Grant
  • Italian Association for Cancer Research program "Bridge Grant"
  • The Ehlers-Danlos Society

    • Completed Grants related to this research:

  • Armenise-Harvard Foundation's Career Development Award
  • Program for Young Researchers "Rita Levi-Montalcini" from MIUR
  • Fondazione Cariplo
  • University Institute of Superior Studies, Pavia (IUSS)
  • MSCA-IF COTETHERS project, funded by the EU H2020 program MSCA-IF COTETHERS project, funded by the EU H2020 program
  • Italian Association for Cancer Research program "My First AIRC Grant"
  • Mizutani Foundation for Glycoscience
  • Dipartimenti di Eccellenza Program from MIUR