PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
10/2020 – pres. Royal Society University Research Fellow (Assistant Professor equivalent). Chemistry of Health, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge Leading a research group of ~15.
06/2018 – 10/2020 Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences Fellow (50%FTE since 01/2019) University of Cambridge, UK. One of the 9 inaugural Borysiewicz Fellows selected among the best postdoctoral researchers to receive leadership and entrepreneurship training.
01/2019 – 10/2020 Principal Scientist (50%FTE) Wren Therapeutics, Cambridge, UK. Industry position, leading a team of five to set up an antibody platform.
03/2016 – 06/2018 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK.
EDUCATION
01/2012–03/2016 PhD in Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK.
Thesis advisor: Prof Michele Vendruscolo
10/2006–10/2011 M.Sci. in Theoretical Physics, 110/110 cum laude, University of Milan, Italy.
INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHIPS AND TECHNOLOGY LICENSING
2023 – pres. Collaboration with 52North Health: design of optimal antibodies for lateral flow diagnostics.
2023 – pres. Collaboration with Merck KGaA: impact of excipients on antibody solubility in formulations.
2014 – pres. Collaboration with AstraZeneca: In silico solubility screening of therapeutic mAbs. This
resulted in four publications and funding for a PhD studentship.
2017 – pres. Collaboration with Novo Nordisk: Rational design of mAbs developability. This activity
resulted in four publications and funding for a PDRA.
2022 – pres. Consultant for Chimeris UK. Protein engineering and computational antibody optimisation.
2024 Consultant for NanoNewron. Nanobody humanisation and optimisation.
2020 – 2024 Consultant for Wavebreak Therapeutics. Immunoassay development.
2017 Consultant for ThromboGenics: Solubility ranking of humanised mAbs.
2015 – 2016 Consultant for Bayer: Reduction of antibody aggregation.
Developed the CamSol method to predict solubility; licensed to: Bayer, GSK, BASF enzymes, Wren
Therapeutics (discontinued), AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, Crescendo Biologics, Merck Kga, EMD Serono,
SHI global [Sanofi], F-star therapeutics, Hitachi, and others.
RESEACH GRANTS
2024 – 2026 BBSRC Engineering Biology Mission Award: MAST (Co-I; ~£1.78m)
2024 – 2027 Isaac Newton Trust Strategic Grant (Co-I; ~270k no overheads)
2022 – 2027 ERC Starting Grant (sole PI; converted to UKRI underwrite ~£1.3m ending 11/2027)
2023 – 2025 Enhanced Research Expenses 2023, Royal Society (sole PI; ~£210k)
2022 – 2025 UKRI Knowledge Transfer Partnership (PI; ~£227k)
2021 – 2023 Enhanced Research Expenses 2021, Royal Society (sole PI; ~£170k)
2020 – 2025 Royal Society URF (sole PI; ~£630k, with option of extending by 3 more years to 10/2028)
2020 – 2022 ISSF Joint Research Grants (sole PI; ~£80k)
2021 – 2022 Research Grants 2021 Round 1, Royal Society (sole PI; ~£20k)
PUBLICATIONS AND PATENT
Published 70 peer-reviewed articles, including 13 corresponding authorships and 9 first authorships.
See Google Scholar (curated): goo.gl/gAHn8p Filed 4 patents.
TEACHING
2021 – pres. Designed, lectured, prepared handouts, problem sets, and exam questions of the “Protein
structure, stability, folding, and misfolding” course for 3rd year students.
MENTORING AND SUPPORTING INDIVIDUALS AT EARLIER CAREER STAGES
2021 – pres. Main supervisor of 3 PDRAs, 6 PhD and 1MPhil students, 2 RAs, and 2 part-iii students.
Supervised 2 external master students, several part-iii master students, and co-supervised
3 PhD students (2 in industrial partnerships), who all successfully completed.
2017– 2018 External supervisor (Dept. of Computer Science) of Part II and Part III students. This activity on independently developed projects has resulted in two corresponding authorships.
2021 – pres. I engage with the Postdoc Academy (University of Cambridge) to assist in their mission to
enable postdocs realise their potential by: giving seminars (Leadership PGCert program); sitting in panels that assess applications; engaging with current fellows; recording podcast and contributing material for fundraising; providing feedback for future fellowship programmes.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
10/2020 – present University Research Fellowship, from The Royal Society, UK
08/2024 Elected Fellow of the Durham Institute of Research, Development, and Invention
06/2018 – 10/2020 Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences Fellowship, University of Cambridge, UK.
12/2018 Award for Excellence from the Antibody Society, San Diego, USA
07/2017 Salje Medal 2016 for the best PhD in the Sciences, Clare Hall, Cambridge UK.
SELECTED INVITED SEMINARS (given > 25)
11-13/11/24 European Rosetta Commons Conference, Copenhagen, Keynote speaker
21-22/05/24 EMBL-EBI Industry Programme, Advances in ML for protein design, Opening Keynote
13-16/11/23 PEGS Europe, Lisbon
31/10/23 Oxford Kavli Institute, invited to seminar series
13/10/23 Cambridge Pharmacology Department, invited to seminar series
22/06/23 Antibody Society, Computational Antibody Discovery Symposium, Opening Keynote
2-6/05/22 PEGS Boston
2-4/11/21 PEGS Europe, Barceona, Keynote lecture
15-17/10/19 Festival of Biologis, Basel, Keynote lecture
9-13/12/18 Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics, San Diego. Selected speaker (travel grant and award)
13-15/11/18 Deep Dive Workshop, Merck 350th Anniversary, Millipore Sigma, MA USA.
SCIENTIFIC SERVICES
2016 – pres. Regular reviewer for several journals, including PNAS, Plos Comp. Biol., Nature Structure
and Molecular Biology, Nature Communication, Nature Machine Intelligence, mAbs,
Bioinformatics, NAR, Biophysical Journal, RSC Journals, Molecular Pharmaceutics, etc.
2016 – pres. Developed & maintain webserver to maximise dissemination and usage of our methods, by offering a user-friendly interface (www-cohsoftware.ch.cam.ac.uk).
2018 – pres. Reviewer of grants for the BBSRC, SNF (Swiss agency) and ARDF (US charity)
2024 Scientific Advisor for BioLogic Summit: Demystifing AI/ML for Biologic Drug Development
(Jan13-16, 2025 San Diego)
2022– 2024 Member of the Management Committee of the EU COST Action: CA21160 - Non-globular
proteins in the era of Machine Learning.
2021 – 2022 Topic Editor of Frontiers in Molecular Bioscience (special issue).
2018 – 2020 Member of the Education and Outreach Committee of the Antibody Society.
2016 – 2018 Member of the NGP-net Cost Action network (invited to present at two conferences and led
to two publications).
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
2024 – pres. Member of the BBSRC DTP Research Committee (School of Biological Sciences)
2020 – pres. Bio-Rig Departmental panel member for assessing and interviewing postgraduate applications
2024 – pres. PDRA academic mentor (of 2 PDRAs from other Departments, organized by the Postdoc
Academy) to give feedback and career advice
2022 – 2023 Member of the Departmental focus group on diversity and academic staff recruitment
2022 – 2023 Member of the focus group “Postgraduate Supervision Training pilot” internal to the
Department in partnership with the Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning.
2020 – pres. Examiner: Internal PhD (7 students so far) & External PhD (3 students), MPhil (>5), first-year
PhD probationary review (> 30), and part-iii students (>8). Examiner of undergraduate course.
2020 – pres. Academic mentor of >10 students.