Giancarlo Franzese (Italy 1968) leads the Statistical Physics of Complex Matter group at UB. PhD in Physics with honors (Naples 1998), Associate Researcher at Roma 3 Un., Boston Un., Naples SUN, La Sapienza Un. Rome, Ramón y Cajal at UB 2003, since 2002 Visiting Professor at Universities of Boston, Cambridge, UC-Dublin, Beijing, Porto Alegre, he is UB Tenured Professor since 2008 and Guarantor for Inst. of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology UB. He won the Young CNR Research Abroad prize 2000, the UB Incentive Program for Research 2012, the Royal Soc. of Chemistry-UK selection as Emerging investigator in soft matter 2012, the Nola prize for academic merits 2016. He ranks within the Top Scientists in Spain in Phys., Fluid & Plasmas, Math. Phys., Multidiscipl. Phys., and the Top Italian Scientists in the World, h=33, with 96 publications. He gave 100 Invited Talks, directed 7 Master/13 PhD theses, collected EU/ES funds for over 2millions€ and organized 18 conf. & chaired 8.

Research interests

We develop a multi-scale approach to simulate water at nanobio interfaces under realistic conditions (e.g., nanoparticles and protein solutions at physiological conditions over time-scales up to hours). We combine atomistic simulations of water at bio-interfaces (e.g., proteins or membranes) and nano-interfaces (e.g., nanoparticles or graphene sheets) and coarse-grain models of hydration water for protein folding and protein design. We focus on protein self-assembly and crystallization, in bulk or under confinement, and on the kinetics of proteins adsorption on nanoparticles, verifying our predictions in collaboration with several experimental groups. We try to find answers for fundamental questions (Why water is so important for life? Which properties make water unique for biological processes?) and applications (Can we design better drugs? Can we limit protein-aggregations causing Alzheimer? How to implement nanotheranostic?).

Keywords

Biological Physics. Biological Water. Bio-Nano Interactions. Protein Folding. Protein Design. Self-Assembly. Complex Liquids. Soft Matter.