Filippo mancia, ph.d.
Filippo Mancia is an Associate Professor and the co-Director of Graduate Education in the Department of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University. He graduated in Chemistry in Pavia (Italy), and obtained a PhD in Biology at the University of Cambridge and at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK under the supervision of Dr. Phil Evans, FRS. His post-doctoral work was carried out in the labs of Drs. Wayne Hendrickson and Nobel Laureate Richard Axel at Columbia University. He has headed an independent research group at Columbia University since 2009 with a main emphasis on structural biology. His laboratory uses techniques such as x-ray crystallography and single-particle cryo-electron microscopy to unveil the atomic resolution structures of biological macromolecules relevant to human health and disease. In particular, his focus is on proteins that reside within biological membranes. Membrane proteins are responsible for the biosynthesis and modification of the membranes themselves, they mediate all the transport processes across the hydrophobic bilayer, all the response of cells to extracellular stimuli, and comprise major drug targets
He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation (ISSNAF). ISSNAF is non-profit organization established just over a decade ago by a group of 36 renowned scientists and academics (including 4 Nobel Laureates), with a mission to promote scientific, academic and technological cooperation between Italian researchers based in North America and the research environment in Italy. ISSNAF, with its over 4000 affiliated is the major representative of the Italian intellectual diaspora in North America, and represents a bridge connecting the two sides of the Atlantic, to allow sharing and diffusion of a priceless wealth of knowledge.
Rie nygaard, ph.d.
Post-doc. Obtained her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. During her doctorate, she was a visiting student in the lab of Dr. Brian Kobilka at Stanford University, where she also did a brief post-doc, followed by a post-doc in the lab of Dr. Lynette Cegelski, also at Stanford. She has focused her career on membrane proteins and biophysical techniques to study their structure and function, including solid state and solution state NMR, and cryo-EM.
Rosemary cater, ph.d.
Post-doc. Rosie fulfilled her under-graduate and graduate studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. During her PhD she studied electrophysiological and biophysical properties of glutamate transporters in the lab of Dr. Renae Ryan and Dr. Robert Vandenberg. Her current research uses cryo-EM and liposomal based assays to study the transport of lipids across biological membranes. She is a current Simons Society Junior Fellow.