Alessandra Astegno
University of Verona, Italy
Biography
Alessandra Astegno is interested in different aspects of protein chemistry, including folding, evolution and structure-function relationship of proteins and macromolecular assemblies. She obtained a PhD in Applied Biotechnologies from University of Verona in 2010. She is currently assistant professor in Biochemistry at the Department of Biotechnology of the University of Verona. She has a solid background in recombinant protein expression and purification, functional and structural characterization of metallo-proteins as well as PLP-dependent enzymes. Recently, her work focused on the study of calcium signaling in higher plants through biophysical, biochemical and structural characterization of calcium sensor proteins, such as calmodulin and calmodulin like proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana.