Fabrizio Chiti (born in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, 7 July 1971) is an Italian

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

noted for his work on

Protein aggregation In molecular biology, protein aggregation is a phenomenon in which intrinsically disordered proteins, intrinsically-disordered or mis-folded proteins aggregate (i.e., accumulate and clump together) either intra- or extracellularly. Protein aggre ...

and

amyloid Amyloids are aggregates of proteins characterised by a fibrillar morphology of typically 7–13 nm in diameter, a β-sheet secondary structure (known as cross-β) and ability to be stained by particular dyes, such as Congo red. In the human ...

Education

Chiti is a graduate in

Biological Sciences Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

of the

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

(Italy). He attained a

PhD degree A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

( D.Phil) in

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

in 2000 at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in UK. He then worked as a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

at the

, Italy, with Giampietro Ramponi as a supervisor (2000–2002) and at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, UK, under the supervision of

Chris Dobson Sir Christopher Martin Dobson (8 October 1949 – 8 September 2019) was a British chemist, who was the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and Master ...

(2002).

Research and career

He was appointed as an Associate (2002) and then

Full Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

(2010) at the

Biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

. Chiti provided contributions in the field of misfolding and aggregation, particularly in the field of

He rationalized how

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although over 500 amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the 22 α-amino acids incorporated into proteins. Only these 22 a ...

mutations In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosi ...

induce protein aggregation and edited an equation to predict the effect of mutations on the aggregation of an unfolded protein, which led to a search by many investigators of algorithms with predictive power on essential aspects of protein aggregation. He also correlated the toxicities of abnormal protein oligomers with specific structural properties of them. His 2006 review with

on protein misfolding, amyloid formation and human disease, later updated as a new report, is a reference paper in the field of amyloid and received, as of October 2019, more than four thousands citations in scientific publications.

Awards and honors

* Election to EMBO Young Investigator program,

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

, 2005 * Election to member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

, 2015 * Jean-Francois LeFèvre Lecture,

École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg The French École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg, also called European School of Biotechnology, Strasbourg (ESBS) is a scientific college situated in Illkirch (Greater Strasbourg). It was founded in 1982 as an autonomous institute withi ...

, 2003 * Maria Teresa Messori Roncaglia ed Eugenio Mari Award,

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

, 2010

References

External links

Fabrizio Chiti's homepage at University of Florence

Department of Biomedical Experimental and Clinical Sciences at University of Florence
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chiti, Fabrizio Members of Academia Europaea Italian biochemists Living people Scientists from Florence 1971 births