| Giorgio Colombo, Full Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Pavia |
| Education and training |
| 1999-2001: ITN and Marie Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, Laboratory of Prof. H.J.C.C. Berendsen and Prof. A.E. Mark 1997-1998: Research Associate at the Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA USA 1999: PhD in Chemical Sciences, University of Milano 1996: Masters Degree in Chemical Sciences, University of Milano |
| Professional experience |
| 2017-present: Full professor of Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy 2001-2017: Researcher and Head of the Computational Biochemistry group at the Istituto di Chimica del Riconoscimento Molecolare, National Research Council (ICRM-CNR), Milano, Italy 2014-present: Member of the Scientific and Technical Committee of AIRC (Associazione Italiana Ricerca sul Cancro) 2013: Visiting Professorship at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Host David. A. Agard 2005-2014: Board Member of the Division of Chemistry For Biological Systems of the Italian Chemical Society 2010-2014: Elected Councilor of the International Society for Quantum Biology and Pharmacology (ISQBP) 2005: Visiting Scientist at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA. HONORS and AWARDS 2000: Recipient of the Marie Curie Fellowship for post-doctoral research from the European Community commission 2004: Recipient of the Best Young Investigator Award from the Division of Chemistry of Biological Systems of the Italian Chemical Society 2008: Recipient of the “Ricercatissimi” Award from the President of Lombardy for career achievements 2012: Personal award from the Cariplo Foundation-UNESCO call “Exploration of new research frontiers – Award 2011”. Title of the project: Chemical control of signalling pathways by modulation of hub proteins (Checosp), 230 K€. Special call for funding dedicated to International year of Chemistry 2011. The selection committee was composed by: – Aaron Ciechanover, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, Nobel Laureate for Chemistry 2004; – Gerhard Ertl, Fritz-Haber Institut Max-Planck, Nobel Laureate for Chemistry 2007 – Oliver Guthmann, Investment Manager of BASF Venture – Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University, Wolf Prize for Chemistry 2011- Phillip Szuromi, Supervisor Senior Editor of Science Magazine RESEARCH STATEMENT My research aims to explore the links between structure, conformational dynamics and molecular recognition to identify the atomistic determinants of self-organization in biochemical systems, principles of host-guest molecular recognition, and their relationships to the function and the design of new molecules with interesting properties. These objectives are pursued through a combination of existing and newly developed computational and theoretical techniques. Insights gained from these studies are used to define new principles for the design of novel molecular biosystems. The strength of our research relies on the strong integration with collaborative experimental approaches to provide valuable mechanistic interpretations and validations of our theoretical predictions. Research is supported by external national and international grants. |
| Scientific Publications and Congress or Other Oral Communications |
| Complete List of Publications https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=-vCLX9kAAAAJ&hl=it&oi=ao https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=15739411100 List of 5 selected indexed publications: 1) Sanchez-Martin, C.; Moroni, E.; Ferraro, M.; Laquatra, C.; Cannino, G.; Masgras, I.; Negro, A.; Quadrelli, P.; Rasola, A.; Colombo, G., Rational Design of Allosteric and Selective Inhibitors of the Molecular Chaperone TRAP1. Cell Reports 2020, 31 (3), 107531. 2) Taylor, I.R.; Assimon, V.A.; Rinaldi, S.; Kuo, S.Y..; Li, X.; Young, Z.T.; Morra, G.; Green, K.; Nguyen, D.; Shao, H.; Garneau-Tsodikova, S.; Colombo, G.*; Gestwicki, J.E. Tryptophan Scanning Mutagenesis as a Way to Mimic the Compound-Bound State and Validate the Selectivity of Allosteric Inhibitors in Cells. Chemical Science, 2020, 10(4), 660-670 3) Paladino, A.; Woodford, M. R.; Backe, S. J.; Sager, R. A.; Kancherla, P.; Daneshvar, M. A.; Chen, V. Z.; Bourboulia, D.; Ahanin, E. F.; Prodromou, C.; Bergamaschi, G.; Strada, A.; Cretich, M.; Gori, A.; Veronesi, M.; Bandiera, T.; Vanna, R.; Bratslavsky, G.; Serapian, S. A.; Mollapour, M.; Colombo, G. Chemical Perturbation of Oncogenic Protein Folding: from the Prediction of Locally Unstable Structures to the Design of Disruptors of Hsp90–Client Interactions. Chemistry – A European Journal 2020, 26 (43), 9459-9465. 4) Hu, S.; Ferraro, M.; Thomas, A.; Chung, J.M.; Yoon, N.G.; Seol, J.H.; Kim, S.; Kim, H.-u.; An, M.Y.; Jung, H.S.; Ryu, J.H.; Colombo, G.*; Kang, B.H. Dual Binding to Orthosteric and Allosteric Sites Enhances the Anticancer Activity of a TRAP1-Targeting Drug. J. Med. Chem., 202063(6):2930-2940 5) Moroni, E.; Agard, D.A.; Colombo, G. The structural asymmetry of mitochondrial Hsp90 (Trap1) determines fine tuning of functional dynamics. J. Chem. Theor. Comput. 2018, 14(2), 1033-1044. Oral Communications and Congresses More than 80 invitations for Seminars, Invited Lectures, Plenary Presentations, Keynote Presentations, Oral Communication at national and international Universities, Research Centres, Congresses and Workshops. Main Oral Communications (Last 5 Years) -Invited speaker at the “Chaperone Code Meeting”, Organized by the State University of New York, Syracuse, 28-29 October 2020. – Invited speaker at the Conference “Computational Advances in Drug Discovery”, Sestri Levante, 23-26 September 2019. -Invited speaker at the Cecam Workshop “Protein-peptide interactions: peptide identification, binding prediction and design”, Paris, France, 16-19 October 2018. -Invited plenary speaker at the “Convegno 2018 della Divisione di Chimica dei Sistemi Biologici, Società Chimica Italiana”, Caserta, Italy, 26-28 September 2018. -Invited seminar at the Computational Biomedicine Institute Forschungszentrum Jülich, Julich, Germany, 23 January 2018. -Distinguished Safra Center Speaker, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 May 2017 -Invited speaker at the workshop “Statistical and Molecular Biophysics”, SISSA-ISAS Trieste, Italy, October 12-13th, 2015 -Speaker at the Gordon Research Conference-Bioorganic Chemistry 2015, Andover, NH-USA, June 7th-12th 2015. |
| Recent Representative Grants |
| Title of the project: Combining biophysics, bioinformatics and chemical biology for the discovery of new antineoplastic molecules based on endogenous inhibitors of angiogenesis. Funding Organization: Ministry of Health – Young Investigator Award Duration: 2009-2012 Role in the project: Coordinator Funding received: 504000€ Contract number: GR 2007-683210r Title of the project: DISCOVERY/DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC PROBES AND VACCINE CANDIDATES TARGETING BURKHOLDERIA INFECTIONS Funding Organization: Region of Lombardy-Cariplo Foundation Duration: 2013-2015 Role in the project: Coordinator. Funding received: 651790€ (of which 197000€ to the Colombo Group) Contract number: 42666248 (2013-0349) Title of the project: TRAPping the metabolic adaptations of plexiform neurofibroma. Funding Organization: NTAP, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA. Duration: 2018-2020 Role in the project: Co-PI Funding: 150000 USD Contract number: SAP GRANT 123141 |