I was born in Barcelona, Spain. I obtained my first degree in Chemistry at the University of Barcelona followed by a MSc in Chemical Research at the University of London and a PhD in Organic Chemistry at the University of Barcelona. In 2003, I moved to the University of Cambridge to work as a Research Fellow with Christopher Dobson on the structural and dynamical characterization of proteins. In 2008 I joined ICREA as a Researcher and the IRB as a Group Leader and in 2013 I became ICREA Research Professor.
Research interests
A high resolution description of the structure and dynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins is a very useful tool to study the properties and the function of these important biomacromolecules and, most importantly, to understand how changes in sequence or environment can lead to disease. My research work aims, on the one hand, at developing approaches to probe the conformational heterogeneity of intrinsically disordered proteins and, on the other hand, at understanding how changes in such motions relate to the molecular recognition of proteins, to their multimerization properties, to their function and to disease.
Selected publications
- Basu S, Martínez-Cristóbal P, Frigolé-Vivas M, Pesarrodona M, Lewis M, Szulc E, Bañuelos CA, Sánchez-Zarzalejo C, Bielskutė S, Zhu J, Pombo-García K, Garcia-Cabau C, Zodi L, Dockx H, Smak J, Kaur H, Batlle C, Mateos B, Biesaga M, Escobedo A, Bardia L, Verdaguer X, Ruffoni A, Mawji NR, Wang J, Obst JK, Tam T, Brun-Heath I, Ventura S, Meierhofer D, García J, Robustelli P, Stracker TH, Sadar MD, Riera A, Hnisz D, Salvatella X,
2023, 'Rational optimization of a transcription factor activation domain inhibitor', Nat Struct Mol Biol
, 30, 1958–1969.
- Sanfeliu-Cerdan N, Catala-Castro F, Mateos B, Garcia-Cabau C, Ribera M, Ruider I, Porta-de-la-Riva M, Canals-Calderon A, Wieser S, Salvatella X, Krieg M, 2023, 'A MEC-2/stomatin condensate liquid-to-solid phase transition controls neuronal mechanotransduction during touch sensing', Nat Cell Biol, 25, 1590-1599.
- Piol D, Tosatto L, Zuccaro E, Anderson EN, Falconieri A, Polanco MJ, Marchioretti C, Lia F, White J, Bregolin E, Minervini G, Parodi S, Salvatella X, Arrigoni G, Ballabio A, La Spada AR, Tosatto SCE, Sambataro F, Medina DL, Pandey UB, Basso M, Pennuto M, 2023, 'Antagonistic effect of cyclin-dependent kinases and a calcium-dependent phosphatase on polyglutamine-expanded androgen receptor toxic gain of function', Sci Adv, 9, 1, eade1694.
- Mensah MA, Niskanen H, Magalhaes AP, Basu S, Kircher M, Sczakiel HL, Reiter AMV, Elsner J, Meinecke P, Biskup S, Chung BHY, Dombrowsky G, Eckmann-Scholz C, Hitz MP, Hoischen A, Holterhus PM, Hülsemann W, Kahrizi K, Kalscheuer VM, Kan A, Krumbiegel M, Kurth I, Leubner J, Longardt AC, Moritz JD, Najmabadi H, Skipalova K, Snijders Blok L, Tzschach A, Wiedersberg E, Zenker M, Garcia-Cabau C, Buschow R, Salvatella X, Kraushar ML, Mundlos S, Caliebe A, Spielmann M, Horn D & Hnisz D. 2023, 'Aberrant phase separation and nucleolar dysfunction in rare genetic diseases', Nature, 614, 564 – 571.