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Xavier Salvatella

Xavier Salvatella

Institut de Recerca Biomèdica

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

– Biesaga M, Frigole-Vivas M, Salvatella X 2021, ‘Intrinsically disordered proteins and biomolecular condensates as drug targets’, Curr Opin Chem Biol, 62, 90 – 100.

– Garcia-Cabau , Salvatella X 2021, ‘Regulation of biomolecular condensate dynamics by signaling’, Curr Opin Cell Biol 69, 111 – 119.

– Guberovic I, Hurtado-Bagès S, Rivera-Casas C, Knobloch G, Malinverni R, Valero V, Leger MM, García J, Basquin J, Gómez de Cedrón M,  Frigolé-Vivas M, Cheema MS, Pérez A, Ausió J, Ramírez de Molina A, Salvatella X, Ruiz-Trillo I, Eirin-Lopez JM, Ladurner AG, Buschbeck M 2021, ´Evolution of a histone variant involved in compartmental regulation of NAD metabolism´ Nat Struc Mol Biol 28, 1009-1019.

– Bielskute S, Garcia-Cabau C, Frigole-Vivas M, Szulc E, De Mol E, Pesarrodona M, Garcia J, Salvatella X 2021, ‘Low amounts of heavy water increase the phase separation propensity of a fragment of the androgen receptor activation domain’, Prot Sci, 30, 1427-1437.

ICREA Memoir 2021