Position: Associate Professor
Structure: Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche – DiSC
Address: VIA F. MARZOLO, 1 – PADOVA
Telephone: 0498275740
E-mail: gabriele.giachin at unipd.it
I am a structural biologist and organic chemist investigating the molecular mechanisms that connect mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation with respiratory Complex I function and energy metabolism. Using an integrative approach that combines cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), NMR, SAXS, and X-ray diffraction, I aim to understand how key mitochondrial enzymes assemble at the inner mitochondrial membrane and how their dysfunction contributes to mitochondrial and bioenergetic disorders. I am also interested in intrinsically disordered proteins (e.g., synuclein, tau and prion protein) and their involvement in protein misfolding diseases, a topic that forms part of my scientific background.
After earning my Ph.D. in Functional and Structural Genomics from SISSA (Trieste) I worked at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble) where I contributed to pioneering studies on metal coordination in prion proteins and the assembly mechanisms of the respiratory Complex I.
As a former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, I now lead a research group at DiSC focusing on integrative approaches to explore mitochondrial enzyme regulation and lipid–protein interactions.
My work has been published in journals such as Angewandte Chemie, Nature Communications, PNAS, JACS and Biophysical Journal. I am passionate about teaching, science outreach and bridging structural biology with chemistry through interdisciplinary approaches.