Lucia Banci

Dr. Lucia Banci
Professor of Chemistry
Magnetic Resonance Center
and Department of Chemistry
University of Florence
Via L. Sacconi 6
50019 Sesto Fiorentino, (FI) - Italy

Tel: +39 055 4574273/63 - Fax: +39 055 4574253

E-mail: bancicerm.unifi.it

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Curriculum Vitae (English)

Lucia Banci is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florence. Her research expertise is focused on structural biology,within an integrated, cellular perspective. She is working mainly in solution through high resolution NMR spectroscopy, to which she has also contributed methodological and theoretical advancements. She has been an active player in Structural Genomics projects. Her approach was driven by the "function perspective" more than by a broad coverage of genome products. As an advancement of this approach, she is now extensively contributing to the development of Integrated and Cellular Structural Biology projects, combining atomic level characterization with a cellular context. She is also extensively contributing to methodological advancements in this field.

Her research work is focused on proteins involved in several pathways responsible for metal homeostasis, and that of copper in particular, on protein import and maturation processes in mitochondria, through metal incorporation and/or oxidative folding. She is providing unique contributions to mechanistic aspects of Systems Biology of metal ions. She is also developing and exploiting an absolutely innovative approach in vaccine design, i.e. Structural Vaccinology, based on the structural characterization of the antigens and of their interaction with antibodies. In her research she is exploiting the combination, in an integrated manner, ofNMR, SAXS and X-ray crystallography. Most recently she has also made and is making major advances in developing innovative approaches in in-cell NMR and applied them for characterizing conformational and functional states of proteins at atomic resolution directly in living cells. Finally, she is characterizing proteins which are naturally unstructured or partially unfolded and the mechanisms of protein aggregation involved in several neurological diseases. She has published more than 340 research articles and has solved above 140 protein structures. (h-Index (Google Scholar) = 57)

She is one of the founders and now Director of the Center of Magnetic Resonance (CERM) of the University of Florence, which features an impressive battery of NMR spectrometers. The Center constitutes a major European NMR infrastructure in the Life Sciencesand is a Core Center of the ESFRI Research InfrastructureINSTRUCT. Flanking institutions and spin-off laboratories have flourished around CERM in the fields of biotechnology and drug discovery thanks also to her research achievements.

She is member of EMBO and of AcademiaNet.

Selected recent publications

Banci L, Barbieri L, Bertini I, Luchinat E, Secci E, Zhao Y and Aricescu AR. Atomic-resolution monitoring of protein maturation in live human cells by NMR. Nat Chem Biol doi: 10.1038/nchembio.1202: epub ahead of print, 2013

Banci, L., Bertini, I., Calderone, V., Ciofi-Baffoni, S., Giachetti, A., Jaiswal, D., Mikolajczyk, M., Piccioli, M., and Winkelmann, J. A molecular view of an electron transfer pathway essential for iron-sulfur protein biogenesis. Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.USA . 2013.

Banci L, Bertini I, Cantini F, Kozyreva T, Massagni C, Palumaa P, Rubino JT and Zovo K. Human SOD1 maturation through interaction with human CCS. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109: 13555-13560, 2012

Banci L, Bertini I, Blazevits O, Calderone V, Cantini F, Mao J, Trapananti A, Vieru M, Amori I, Cozzolino M and Carri MT. Interaction of Cisplatin with Human Superoxide Dismutase.  J Am Chem Soc 134: 7009-7014, 2012

Banci L, Barbieri L, Bertini I, Cantini F and Luchinat E. In-cell NMR in E.coli to monitor maturation steps of hSOD1. Plos ONE 6: e23561, 2011

Banci L, Bertini I, Calderone V, Cefaro C, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Gallo A, Kallergi E, Lionaki E, Pozidis C, and Tokatlidis K, Molecular recognition and substrate mimicry drive the electron-transfer process between MIA40 and ALR, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 108, 4811-4816, 2011

Scarselli M, Aricò B, Brunelli B, Savino S, Di Marcello F, Palumbo E, Veggi D, Ciucchi L, Cartocci E, Bottomley MJ, Malito E, Lo Surdo P, Comanducci M, Giuliani MM, Cantini F, Dragonetti S, Colaprico A, Doro F, Giannetti P, Pallaoro M, Brogoini B, Tontini M, Hilleringmann M, Nardi-Dei V, Banci L, Pizza M, Rappuoli R, Rational design of a meningococcal antigen inducing broad protective immunity, Sci Transl Med, 3, 97-106, 2011

Banci L, Bertini I, Cefaro C, Cenacchi L, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Felli IC, Gallo A, Gonnelli L, Luchinat E, Sideris D, Tokatlidis K., Molecular chaperone function of Mia40 triggers consecutive induced folding steps of the substrate in mitochondrial protein import., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2010 Nov 23;107(47):20190-5. Epub 2010 Nov 8.

Banci L, Bertini I, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Kozyreva T, Zovo K and Palumaa P. Affinity gradients drive copper to cellular destinations. Nature 465: 645-648, 2010

Banci L, Bertini I, Boca M, Calderone V, Cantini F, Girotto S, and Vieru M Structural and dynamic aspects related to oligomineralization of apo SOD1 and its mutants. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106: 6980-6985, 2009

Banci L, Bertini I, Cefaro C, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Gallo A, Martinelli M, Sideris DP, Katrakili N and Tokatlidis K, MIA40 is and oxidoreductase that catalyzes oxidative protein folding in mitochondria. Nat Struct Mol Biol 16: 198-206, 2009

Abriata LA, Banci L, Bertini I, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Gkazonis P, Spyroulias GA, Vila AJ and Wang S, Mechanism of Cu(A) assembly. Nat Chem Biol 4: 599-601, 2008

Andreini C, Banci L, Bertini I and Rosato A. Occurence of copper through the three domains of life: a bioinformatic approach. J Proteome Res 1: 209-216, 2008.

Banci L, Bertini I, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Hadjiloi T, Martinelli M and Palumaa P. Mitochondrial copper(I) transfer from Cox17 to Sco1 is coupled to electron transfer. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105: 6803-6808, 2008.

Csizmok V, Felli IC, Tompa P,  Banci L and Bertini I, Structural and dynamic characterization of intrinsecally disordered human securin by NMR. J Am Chem Soc 130: 16873-16879, 2008. 

Banci L, Baumeister W, Enfedaque J, Heinemann U, Schneider G, Silman I and Sussman JL. Structural proteomics: from the molecule to the system. Nat Struct Mol Biol 14: 3-4, 2007.

Banci L, Bertini I, Girotto S, Martinelli M, Vieru M, Whitelegge J, Durazo A and Valentine JS. Metal-free SOD1 forms amyloid-like oligomers: a possible general mechanism for familial ALS.  Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104: 11263-11267, 2007.

Andreini C, Banci L, Bertini I and Rosato A. Zinc through the three domains of life. J Proteome Res 5: 3173-3178, 2006.

Andreini C, Banci L, Bertini I and Rosato A. Counting the zinc proteins encoded in the human genome.  J Proteome Res 5: 196-201, 2006

Arnesano F, Banci L and Piccioli M. NMR structures of paramagnetic metalloproteins. Q Rev Biophys 38: 167-219, 2006. 

Banci L, Bertini I, Calderone V, Ciofi-Baffoni S, Mangani S, Martinelli M, Palumaa P and Wang S. A hint for the function of human Sco1 from different structures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103: 8595-8600, 2006.

Banci L, Bertini I, Cantini F, Felli IC, Gonnelli L, Hadjiliadis N, Pierattelli R, Rosato Aand Voulgaris P. The Atx1-Ccc2 complex is a metal-mediated protein-protein interaction. Nat Chem Biol 2: 367-368, 2006.

Banci L. MD simulations of metalloproteins. Curr Opin Chem Biol 7: 143-149, 2003.

Banci L and Rosato A. Structural genomics of proteins involved in copper homeostasis. Acc Chem Res 36: 215-221, 2003.