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Nagrajenec

Fabio Lapenta

Lapajnetovo priznanje, 2021

Dr. Fabio Lapenta completed his masters degree at the University of Bologna in 2014. Soon after he moved to Slovenia, where he received his PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Ljubljana in October 2019. He conducted his research in the Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology at National Institute of Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Roman Jerala. Recently, he moved to the Laboratory for Environmental and Life Science of the University of Nova Gorica, where he joined a research project focused on HPV infection and oncogenesis, led by Dr. Martina Bergant Marušič.

Dr. Lapentas work encompassed several research projects in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology. In particular, he focused on protein design, protein structure-to-function relationship, enzymatic activity and protein-protein interactions. In his doctoral thesis, Dr. Lapenta described the design and characterization of novel protein structures. Building new protein structures - ones that do not occur in nature - is a major challenge in structural biology and paves the way for a better understanding of a fundamental question in protein science: how does a particular protein sequence define its native conformation? His work answered part of that question. By focusing on the construction and manipulation of modular folds, he clarified their design requirements, the technical necessities of working with such synthetic proteins, and thus facilitated the use of these tailor-made nanostructures for various applications. Together with his co-workers, he had developed a system for the iterative design, isolation and characterization of coiled-coil-based de novo proteins that can self-assemble under physiological conditions. This research has helped to further elucidate the rules governing the self-assembly of large oligomeric cages, thereby extending the reach of the design strategy. Dr. Lapenta is the author of several research articles and topical reviews published in prestigious scientific journals. He is also the recipient of the Pregl Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation, awarded by the National Institute of Chemistry.

During his research activities, Dr. Lapenta established several collaborations with Slovene and international colleagues and was a member of a cross-border research team working on innate immunity for three years. In all these years, he demonstrated great independence and the initiative needed to tackle new challenges. At the same time, he supervised many younger colleagues, including the Slovenian 2016 iGEN student’s team, and introduced them to the field of protein biochemistry. He contributed greatly also to the promotion of Slovene science by having numerous lectures presentations at international academic conferences and disseminating the scientific advances of his research group to the general public through various media.

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