Giuseppe GRASSO
Keywords
Mass Spectrometry
Surface Plasmon Resonance
Bioinorganic Chemistry
Neurodegenerative diseases
Associate Professor in General and Inorganic Chemistry (03/B1). President of the Bachelor of Science in Chemistry.
Courses: General and Inorganic Chemistry (9 CFU) at the B.D. course in Biological Sciences and General and Inorganic Chemistry and laboratory (6 CFU) -Module 2 at the B.D. course in Chemistry
Main research topics:
- Metal dishomeostasis in Alzheimer's disease
- The role of Insulin-degrading enzyme in Alzheimer's disease
- The study of proteosome activity and its modulation Alzheimer's disease e Rett's syndrome
- Mass spectrometry applied to the characterisation of functionalised nanoparticles
- Bioinorganic Chemistry
- Mass Spectrometry and study of biomolecular interactions through Surface Plasmon Resonance
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7179-4835
EDUCATION AND TEACHING
He was born in 1977 in Catania and in 2000 obtained the “Laurea” in Chemistry in Catania (110/110 cum laude) from the University of Catania and in 2004 the PhD in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham (UK). After several post-docs in Italy and England, he finally got a permanent position at the University of Catania in 2010 where he is currently employed as an Associate Professor. He obtained the National Scientific Qualification for becoming a Full Professor in “Chemical Sciences and Inorganic Systems” (03/B1) and in Chemical Fundamentals in Technologies (03/B2). He has given several courses to PhD students (course: “ A bioinorganic approach to neurodegenerative diseases”), undergraduate students (courses: “General and Inorganic Chemistry” (9 CFU); Bioinorganic Chemistry (6 CFU)), master students (Modules: A.2.4 – Spectroscopy for Molecular diagnosis 2; A.3.6- Metal complexes as antitumoral drugs and their targets; course: “Microdestructive techniques and laser desorption techniques”). He has won a Fulbright scholarship as a Visiting Professor at Penn University for 9 months.
SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY
Giuseppe Grasso has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and he has an h-index of 30. He has attended more than 70 international conferences, presenting his work either as an oral communication or as an invited lecture.
He has been selected for the “Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program” 2015/2016 and spent 9 months at the University of Pennsylvania, working on “Apolipoprotein E, metals and Alzheimer's Disease: uncovering underlying unifying mechanism to explain pathogenesis”.
He has been participating to several funded project and he was the PI and national coordinator of a funded PRIN project Prot. 20157WZM8A, entitled: “Role of metal dyshomeostasis and ubiquitin-proteasome system derangement in brain pathologies: risk factors and neuroprotective strategies”.
He is:
- Principal Investigator PRIN 2023: “Molecular details on the early phase of amyloid beta peptides aggregation: a multilevel approach based on carbon dots fluorescence and diffusion coefficients measurements to unveil the pathogenic molecular mechanisms at the base of Alzheimer’s disease”.
- Departmental Coordinator: PO Salute T4 dal titolo “RIPOSIZONAMENTO DI FARMACI NELLE MALATTIE NEUROLOGICHE RARE DEL SISTEMA NERVOSO IN ETA’ PEDIATRICA”, 2023.
- ORCID: 0000-0002-7179-4835
- CINECA IRIS Institutional Research Information System: link
The research of Dr. Grasso is focused on the study of molecular interactions between biomolecules involved in certain neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. In particular, some metalloproteases such as insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) involved with these diseases are studied and the possibility of modulating the enzymatic activity of these biomolecules for therapeutic purposes is investigated. The influence that metal ions such as copper or zinc and oxidative stress have on the biomolecular mechanisms involved in neurodegeneration is also studied using various analytical techniques such as mass spectrometry, surface plasmon resonance, fluorescence spectoscopy, circular dichroism, etc.
Novel Bioanalytical techniques are developed and applied to determine the diffusion coefficient of various molecules (ref.: Biosensors and Bioelectronics:X (2023), Biosensors and Bioelectronics (2026))
Giuseppe Grasso has been elected President of the Bachelore of Science in Chemistry (11/2020-10/2024);
he is the coordinator and referent of the ERASMUS exchange between the Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Catania and the following Universities:
- UNIVERSITE DE BRETAGNE OCCIDENTALE (France)
- UNIVERSITE DE CERGY-PONTOISE (France)
- AKADEMIA GÓRNICZO-HUTNICZA (Poland)
- THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM (UK)
- MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITÄT HALLE-WITTENBERG (Germany)
- UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA (Portugal)
He loves to travel and has lived several years abroad (4 years in UK and 9 months in USA). He is the author of the novel "Immortalizer. La Vita dalla Morte" Editor Leonida.