Mercoledì 13 Dicembre 2023, ore 13
Edificio Asclepio U8-Aula 4
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Enzymes are extremely selective biocatalysts that play an essential role in biological life processes and pathophysiology, by speeding up most of chemical interconversions in the human body. For these reasons, they either hold a prominent position as targets for drugs and/or natural bioactives or can be used alone or together with other therapies with the purpose of safely treating various diseases.
In this talk, focus will be placed on how various biochemical and biophysical approaches were
combined to address: i) novel biochemical pathways unique to a pathogen which can be inhibited to reduce the growth or kill a pathogen in infectious diseases; ii) the role of naturally-occurring
stilbenoids in the management of diabetes, by the specific inhibition of pancreatic α-amylase; iii) the recovery of therapeutically-relevant enzymes from industrial waste in the frame of effective waste management strategies.
Mauro Marengo
Mauro Marengo received a PhD degree in Food Biotechnology in 2009 at the University of
Milan, where he subsequently carried out his experimental activity in the field of food biochemistry as a postdoctoral fellow. Since 2019 he has been a research fellow in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology group at the Department of Drug Science and Technology of the University of Turin. His research is into the study by a number of biochemical and biophysical approaches of the structure-function relationship of enzymes and bioactive proteins: i) involved in the mechanisms of pathogenicity of microorganisms; ii) associated with neurodegenerative diseases; and iii) extracted from foods and natural matrices.