Our faculty presently consists of two associate professors, Cristian Micheletti (head) and Alessandro Laio (deputy head), one tenure-track scientist, Giovanni Bussi and one co-opted assistant professor, Alessandra Magistrato from CNR who is responsible for the Biophysics research line of the CNR-IOM Democritos Center for Atomistic Simulations in Trieste.


Main research lines in the Molecular and Statistical Biophysics Group are:


(1) Characterization of dense phases of biopolymers (PI: Prof. C. Micheletti) Hide

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In our group we develop and apply theoretical and computational techniques aimed at characterizing the entanglement of dense phases of long biopolymers, particularly DNA. In all organisms, from eukaryotic cells to bacteria and viria, the DNA filaments carrying the genomic information are subject to a very high degree of spatial confinement. The high packing density must be achieved avoiding the formation of entanglements that would be incompatible with the correct biological processing of the genomic material. The central focus of our research is the elucidation of the physical mechanisms that are co-opted in living systems to avoid the excessive geometrical and topological entanglement of DNA filaments. See here for a topical review of the subject.

Caption: Coarse-grained model of a DNA filament packaged inside a viral capsid. A particular aspect of the DNA self-interaction is responsible for avoiding the excessive (and biological detrimental) entanglement of the filament. Figure adapted from Marenduzzo et al. PNAS 2009



(2) Elucidating the relationship between structure and function in proteins and enzymes. (PI: Prof. C. Micheletti)

(3) Simulating rare events in biological systems (PI: Prof. A. Laio)

(4) Molecular Mechanisms of Diseases and Drugs (PI: Dr. A. Magistrato)

(5) Enzymatic and biomimetic catalysis (PI: Dr. A. Magistrato)

(6) Simulation of small ribonucleic acid (RNA) (PI: Dr. G. Bussi)

(7) PLUMED Development (PI: Dr. G. Bussi)