Dr. Coluzza will lead the Computational Biophysics Group, where his work will be focused on the Bio Velcro and Bionic Proteins projects aimed, respectively, at developing protein models with significant applications in protein engineering and drug design, and at developing artificial polymers... biomimetic molecules that can imitate the behaviour of biological molecules.

Ivan Coluzza graduated in Physics at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome and, in 2005, obtained his PhD in Physics at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in Amsterdam. He has subsequently worked as a university assistant at the University of Vienna, and a post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research (UK) and the University of Cambridge.

With respect to the Bio Velcro project (the computational design of highly selective tumour targeting nanoparticles), Dr. Coluzza’s group has introduced a novel computational methodology capable of quantitatively describing the relation between protein sequence and protein folding. By applying such methodology, the group proposes to computationally optimise artificial proteins to achieve multivalent binding of drug-delivery vehicles to cancer cells.

The Bionic Proteins research project (theory and simulations of modular bionic proteins) aims at defining a novel theoretical framework within which the group will be able to design new experimentally realisable materials with tuneable self-assembling properties.