Download PHS 398 (Rev. 11/07), Biographical Sketch Format Page

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Provide the following information for the key personnel and other significant contributors in the order listed on Form Page 2.
Follow this format for each person. DO NOT EXCEED FOUR PAGES.
NAME
POSITION TITLE
Paola Bisignano
Postdoctoral Research Associate
eRA COMMONS USER NAME (credential, e.g., agency login)
EDUCATION/TRAINING (Begin with baccalaureate or other initial professional education, such as nursing, and include postdoctoral training.)
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
DEGREE
(if applicable)
YEAR(s)
FIELD OF STUDY
University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
B.S.
01-05
Biological Sciences
University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
M.S.
06-08
Cellular and Molecular
Biology
Biol Biology
Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy
PhD
10-13
Drug Discovery
A. Personal Statement.
During my bachelor in biology, I spent a considerable amount of time performing wet experiments, mainly
related to molecular biology and recombinant DNA techniques. Later, attending a Master of Science program, I
decided to switch to computational approaches to study proteins structural arrangements and protein ligand
interaction fields. Then, to improve my skills in scripting and programming languages, I became a member of a
bioinformatics team, I learned Perl programming language and I applied this knowledge to devise the code at
the core of the Protein-Ligand Interaction (PLI) web service.
In January 2010, I started my PhD program in Drug Discovery. My interests were mainly focused in the field of
computational fragment based drug design, spanning from docking and protein-ligand interactions studies to
molecular dynamic simulations by brute force methods, running on GPUs and alchemical transformations for
free energy studies. I received my PhD in Drug Discovery and Development (D3) at the IIT (Istituto Italiano di
Tecnologia, www.iit.it), a semi-industrial environment. I am a curious hard worker and I’m always keen to share
my knowledge and experience with colleagues. I’ve been employed in several projects and in exploring new
methods and new protocol settings. Moreover, I had the chance to meet the whole drug discovery process
(from hit discovery to lead optimization phases), being involved in the development of anti-Alzheimer’s drugs
that is one of the main subjects of the D3 department.
I joined Prof. Filizola lab to apply molecular dynamics simulations to G Protein-Coupled Receptors in order to
get mechanistic insights and conformational sampling to the aim of applying molecular docking for rational
design purposes.
Positions and Honors.
Positions of Employment
2004-2005
Internship on Physiology at the Laboratory of Physiology, University of Genoa, Italy
2006-2007
Internship on Genetics, laboratory of Genetics, University of Genoa, Italy
2006-2007
Technical Administration at the Department of Surgical Oncology of the National Institute for
Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy
2007-2008
Internship on Bioinformatics, Molecular Modelling and Molecular Dynamics at the Institute of
Biophysics of the National Research Council (CNR), Genoa, Italy
2008-2009
Teaching (Chemistry, Physic, Biology, Natural Science, Earth Sciences, Geography, Anatomy,
Physiology, Child Care, Hygiene), at the “Grandi Scuole”, CESD company, Genoa, Italy
2009-2010
Specialized technicians at the Department of Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, National
Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy
2010-2012
PhD student at the computational chemistry group led by Prof. Andrea Cavalli (Department D3,
IIT, Genoa), working on in silico fragment based drug design.
2012-2013
Visiting student at The Multiscale Lab of Dr. Gianni De Fabritis (PRBB, Barcelona) studying free
energy of binding applying high throughput Molecular Dynamics on GPUs.
2013-2014
Fellowship to attend the computational chemistry group led by Prof. Andrea Cavalli (Department
D3, IIT, Genoa), working on in silico multi target protocols for the treatment of
neurodegenerative diseases, applying docking methods and free energy calculations and
mentoring students.
Professional Memberships, Invited Seminars and Awards
B. Peer-reviewed publications.
Bisignano P., Doerr S., Harvey M., Favia A. D., Cavalli A. and de Fabritiis G. Kinetic characterization of
binding in AmpC β-lactamase by high-throughput MD simulations. JCIM accepted
Gallina A. M., Bisignano P., Bergamino M. And Bordo D. PLI: a web server for the comparison of proteinligand interactions observed in PDB structures. 2013 Bioinformatics, 29(3):395-397.
Bisignano P., Lambruschini C., Bicego M., Murino V., Cavalli A. and Favia A.D. In silico deconstruction of
ATP-competitive inhibitors of Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3β. 2012 JCIM, 52(12):3233-3244.
Favia, A. D., Bottegoni, G., Nobeli, I., Bisignano, P. and Cavalli, A. SERAPhiC: a Benchmark for in Silico
Fragment-Based Drug Design. 2011 JCIM 51(11):2882-96.
Bicego M., Favia A. D., Bisignano, P, Cavalli, A., Murino, V. An innovative protocol for comparing protein
binding site via atomic grid maps. Proceeding. of International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and
Information Retrieval 2011, 413-422.
Bisignano, P. and Moran, O. Molecular dynamics analysis of the wild type and dF508 mutant structures of
the human CFTR-nucleotide binding domain 1. 2010 Biochimie, 92:51-7.
C. Research Support.
None.