AFFILIATION:
Magnetic Resonance Center and Department of Chemistry

ADDRESS:
Via L. Sacconi 6
50019 Sesto Fiorentino, (FI) -Italy

CONTACTS:
Tel: +39 055 4574264
e-mail: cerofolini[at]cerm.unifi.it

RESEARCH PROFILES:
ORCID_ID profile
Google scholar profile

Linda Cerofolini was born in 1984. She graduated cum laude in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology in 2009 at the University of Florence with an experimental master degree in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of professor Cristina Nativi. She obtained the International PhD in “Mechanistic and Structural Systems Biology” under the guidance of professor Claudio Luchinat in 2013 at the University of Florence. From January 2013 till April 2015 she worked as research associate in the spin-off company Giotto Biotech S.r.l. Then she has been post-doctoral fellow under the guidance of professor Claudio Luchinat (2015-2016) at CERM and Department of Chemistry (University of Florence). From 2017 till now she has been working as Research Assistant at the Interuniversitary Consortium for Magnetic Resonance of Metallo Proteins (CIRMMP, University of Florence, Italy).
Her research interests include NMR in solution and in solids – in particular she is focused on i) the evaluation of interacting regions of ligands/proteins on target proteins, using solution NMR, in a structure-based drug development approach; ii) the use of paramagnetic restraints for the structural and dynamic characterization of biological systems; iii) the assessment of the structure preservation, and binding to ligands, of enzymes encapsulated/adsorbed in biomaterials; and ii) the structural characterization of bio-conjugated proteins, such as PEGylated proteins and polysaccharide/protein conjugates.
She has currently published 46 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and is co-author of one European patent; she is co-author of several oral and poster presentations in national and international congresses where she has been awarded with prizes (second best Poster in 2014 at the XLIII National Congress of GIDRM in Bari; Oral communication in 2016 at FEBS/IUBMB Workshop in Seville; Best poster in 2018 at the HDDC in Munich).

RESEARCH FIELDS:

Solution NMR; Solid-state NMR; Structural Biology; Protein-Protein and Protein-Ligands interaction; Biopharmaceuticals; Paramagnetic NMR.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

1. L. Cerofolini, E. Ravera, S. Bologna, T. Wiglenda, A. Böddrich, B. Purfürst, I. Benilova, M. Korsak, G. Gallo, D. Rizzo, L. Gonnelli, M. Fragai, B. De Strooper, E. Wanker, C. Luchinat, Mixing Aβ(1-40) and Aβ(1-42) peptides generates unique amyloid fibrils. Chem. Commun. (Camb.) (2020)56, 8830–8833.

2. J. Amato, L. Cerofolini, D. Brancaccio, S. Giuntini, N. Iaccarino, P. Zizza, S. Iachettini, A. Biroccio, E. Novellino, A. Rosato, M. Fragai, C. Luchinat, A. Randazzo, B. Pagano, Insights into telomeric G-quadruplex DNA recognition by HMGB1 protein, Nucleic Acids Res (2019), 47, 9950–9966.

3. L. Cerofolini, J. M. Silva, E. Ravera, M. Romanelli, C. F.G.C. Geraldes, A. Macedo, M. Fragai, G. Parigi, C. Luchinat, How Do Nuclei Couple to the Magnetic Moment of a Paramagnetic Center? A New Theory at the Gauntlet of the Experiments, J Phys Chem Lett. (2019), 10, 3610-3614.

4. L. Cerofolini, S. Giuntini, E. Ravera, C. Luchinat, F. Berti, M. Fragai, Structural characterization of a protein adsorbed on aluminum hydroxide adjuvant in vaccine formulation, NPJ Vaccines. (2019), 4, 20.

5. L. Cerofolini, S. Giuntini, A. Carlon, E. Ravera, V. Calderone, M. Fragai, G. Parigi, C. Luchinat, Characterization of PEGylated Asparaginase: New Opportunities from NMR Analysis of Large PEGylated Therapeutics, Chemistry. (2019), 25, 1984-1991.

6. S. Giuntini, L. Cerofolini, E. Ravera, M. Fragai, C. Luchinat, Atomic structural details of a protein grafted onto gold nanoparticles, Sci Rep. (2017), 7, 17934.

7. S. Giuntini, E. Balducci, L. Cerofolini, E. Ravera, M. Fragai, F. Berti, C. Luchinat, Characterization of the Conjugation Pattern in Large Polysaccharide–Protein Conjugates by NMR Spectroscopy, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. (2017), 56, 14997-15001.

8. P. Lal, L. Cerofolini, V. G. D'Agostino, C. Zucal, C. Fuccio, I. Bonomo, E. Dessi, S. Giuntini, D. Di Maio, V. Vishwakarma, R. Preet, S. N. Williams, M. S. Fairlamb, R. Munk, E. Lehrmann, K. Abdelmohsen, S. R. Elezgarai, C. Luchinat, E. Novellino, A. Quattrone, E. Biasini, L. Manzoni, M. Gorospe, D. A. Dixon, P. Seneci, L. Marinelli, M. Fragai, A. Provenzani, Regulation of HuR structure and function by dihydrotanshinone-I, Nucleic Acids Res., (2017), 45, 9514-9527.

9. E. Ravera, S. Ciambellotti, L. Cerofolini, T. Martelli, T. Kozyreva, C. Bernacchioni, S. Giuntini, M. Fragai, P. Turano, C. Luchinat, Solid-state NMR of PEGylated proteins, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., (2016), 55, 2446-9.

10. L. Cerofolini, J. Amato, A. Giachetti, V. Limongelli, E. Novellino, M. Parrinello, M. Fragai, A. Randazzo, C. Luchinat, G-triplex structure and formation propensity, Nucleic Acids Res., (2014), 42, 13393–13404.