IPDD Working group 4 – Biophysics of Drug Delivery leader, LINXS Fellow

Vito Foderà received his Ph.D. in Physics (2009) from the University of Palermo (Italy), with a project focused on (in)stability and self-assembly mechanisms of peptides and proteins. In 2009 he was appointed as a Research Associate at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge (UK). In 2012 Vito was awarded the Marie Curie IEF for Career Development grant that allowed him to join the Dept. of Drug Design and Pharmacology (University of Copenhagen). In 2014 he became Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Copenhagen, and in 2016 tenured Associate Professor of Biophysics at the same department, where he established his research group. His main focus is on protein self-assembly mechanisms, and interactions with both biological interfaces and other biomolecules. He aims at translating the fundamental knowledge on these systems into novel high-impact applications, with a main focus on creating advanced materials for nano-medicine and drug delivery, improving safety of protein drug formulations and understanding the etiology of protein-related neurodegenerative diseases. In 2018 he is recipient of the Villum Young Investigator award and is the PI of the related 5-year initiative “ProSmart”, focused on the understanding of structural heterogeneity in protein self-assembled materials via advanced microscopy approaches and X-ray and neutron techniques.