Ghislieri Choir and Consort Member

• Oct 2022 - Present

Responsabile "Progetto Testimonianze"

• 2022 - Present

Medical Student

• Sep 2020 - Present

Visiting fellow

• Aug 2023 - Sep 2023

Winning a bursary provided by Ghislieri College, I was able to spend 6 weeks as an exchange student at the prestigious St John's College (Cambridge, UK). Winning a bursary provided by Ghislieri College, I was able to spend 6 weeks as an exchange student at the prestigious St John's College (Cambridge, UK).

Visitor

• Aug 2023 - Sep 2023

In the Knowles Lab, one of the focal points is delving into the intricate molecular mechanisms that drive amyloid formation. While there, I followed the works of different PhDs and post-Docs. In particular: - 1st week: I followed Dr. Sc. Gea Cereghetti, a postdoc researcher who is interested in understanding how healthy cells can control the formation and re-solubilization of functional amyloids. In particular, she is working on pyruvate kinase (Cdc19) aggregation. I assisted her in the preparation of microfluidic devices and in the actual running of the PhaseScan experiment (reference: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35265-7). I have also helped her in the preparation of a PCR. - 2nd week: I followed PhD student Alessandra Esposito: I was shown how to use an AFM and prepare related samples. - 3rd week: I followed PhD Owen Morris (characterization of G5 action on Aβ aggregates): I was shown AKTA protein purification machine (Beer-Lambert law to obtain protein concentration knowing its absorbance), mass spectrometry, UV-visible spectrophotometer, pH-calibration buffer, sonication, protein labelling with fluorescent dye and droplet casting assay with observation of liquid-liquid phase separation under digital light microscopy. - 4th week: I followed Sarah Yorke, PhD student, interested in the design of nanopeptides. We applied Dynamic Light Scattering to Boc-peptide solutions to analyze their Z potential pattern. We also used Bright-Field Light microscopy to assess the phase-separation of these solutions - 5th week: I followed post-doc Matthias Schneider: he is focusing on understanding disaggregation patterns of Aβ amyloids by Hsc70 (which he already did for α-synuclein, reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25966-w). - 6th week: I followed PhD student Alessia Santambrogio: E. Coli cell culture transformed with plasmids containing kanamycin-resistance and protein K11 (fragment of tau). Spectrophotometer (OD600). PI: prof. Tuomas Knowles Show less