Giuseppe, or as most people call him, Beppe, graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Palermo, after some industrial experience, he got a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Sheffield. Beppe joined the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalunya (IBEC) in 2019 from University College London in the UK. Until 2023, he'll be holding the Chair in Molecular Bionics in the Department of Chemistry. Before UCL, Beppe held positions as Lecturer -2006, Senior Lecturer -2009 and Professor -2011 in the Departments of Materials Sci. Eng. (2006-2009) and Biomedical Science (2009-2013) at the University of Sheffield.   

Research interests

Beppe’s group research focuses on how molecules, macromolecules, viruses, vesicles, and whole cells traffic across our body barriers. Half of his group combines novel microscopic tools with theoretical and computational physics to study biological transport from the single molecules, cell membrane, to the whole organism. The group’s other half translates the acquired knowledge to bioengineer novel nanomedicines, combining soft matter physics with synthetic chemistry. Here, the group designs bionic units that mimic specific biological functions and introduce operations that do not exist in nature. Beppe and his group apply a constructionist approach to mimic biological complexity in design principles to produce functional units from simple building blocks and their interactions. They call such an effort, Molecular Bionics, and it involves inputs from physical science and engineering from one side and biomedical science.