Xavier Salvatella

Institut de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona (IRB Barcelona)

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

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 July 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 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 methods to probe the fluctuations of the structure of proteins by combining experimental data and molecular simulations and, on the other hand, at understanding how changes in such motions relate to the molecular recognition of proteins, to their function and to disease.

Selected publications

– Slebe F, Rojo F, Vinaixa M, García-Rocha M, Testoni G, Guiu M, Planet E, Samino S, Arenas EJ, Beltran A, Rovira A, Lluch A, Salvatella X, Yanes O, Albanell J, Guinovart JJ, Gomis RR 2016, ‘FoxA and LIPG endothelial lipase control the uptake of extracellular lipids for breast cancer growth’, Nature Communications, vol. 7, ncomms.11199

– Eftekharzadeh B, Piai A, Chiesa G, Mungianu D, Garcia J, Pieratelli R, Felli I & Salvatella X 2016, ‘Sequence Context Influences the Structure and Aggregation Behavior of a PolyQ Tract’, Biophysical Journal, 110, 11, 2361 – 2366.

– Pratihar S, Sabo T M, Ban D, Fenwick RB, Becker S, Salvatella X, Griesinger C & Lee D 2016, ‘Kinetics of the Antibody Recognition Site in the Third IgG-Binding Domain of Protein G’, Ange Chem Int Ed, 55, 9567-9570.

– De Mol E, Fenwick RB, Phang CTW, Buzón V, De la Fuente A, Escobedo A, García J, Bertoncini CW, Estébanez-Perpiñá E, McEwan IJ, Riera A and Salvatella X 2016 ‘EPI-001, a compound active against castration-resistant prostate cancer, targets transactivation unit 5 of the androgen receptor’, ACS Chemical Biology, 11, 2499-2505.

– Guillén-Boixet J, Buzón V, Salvatella X & Méndez V 2016, ‘CPEB4 is regulated during cell cycle by ERK2/Cdk1-mediated phosphorylation and its assembly into liquid-like droplets’, eLife 5, e19298.