Paola Laurino

Paola Laurino

Associate Professor

Visiting Professor at the Institute of Protein Research @Osaka University 

Assistant professor (Sept 2017-Oct 2022)

Ph.D. Organic Chemistry (ETH Zurich, 2011)
M.Ph. Medicinal Chemistry (Leiden University, 2007)
Master Degree (Laurea) Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (Milan University)

paola.laurino

I am an organic chemist with broad interests in biochemistry and protein evolution. I was born and grew up in Italy. After pursuing a master in medicinal chemistry in the Netherlands, I started my doctoral studies in organic chemistry in ETHZ (Switzerland). During my PhD I moved to Max Plank Institute (Germany) along with my mentor and there finished my doctoral studies. As postdoctoral fellow I spent the last four years studying enzyme evolution and engineering in Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).

Awards, Fellowships and Grants

• 2022 Takeda grant
• 2022 Rita Colwell award
• 2022 Faculty excellence in mentoring award
• 2021 Iwatani award
• OIST Kick-start Fund (2019-21)
• JSPS grant, Kakenhi Early Career Scientist (2018)
• FGS-Weizmann Institute of Science, Senior Post Doctoral Fellowship (2015)
• Federation of European Biochemical Societies, FEBS Long Term Fellowship (2012-13)
• European Molecular Biology Organization, EMBO Long Term Post Doctoral Fellowship (2012) (Declined)

Selected Oral Presentations

• IUPAB 2024 (Kyoto, Japan), June 2024
• Keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2023, Canberra, Australia, 15 November 2023
• Protein Evolution Meeting, Munster, Germany 2023
• Advances in Protein Design: From therapeutic Proteins to Synthetic Biology Workshop, Kfar Blum, Israel, 23 Oct 2022
• Enzyme Engineering XXVI conference, Dallas, USA, 26 May 2022
• Enzymes, Coenzymes & Metabolic Pathways, Gordon Research Conference (Waterville, USA), July 2022

Selected Publications

• Clifton, B. E.*; Alcolombri, U.; Uechi, G-I; Jackson, C.; Laurino, P.* The ultra-high affinity transport proteins of ubiquitous marine bacteria. Nature 2024, 634, 721- 728 
• Weronika Jasinska†, Mirco Dindo†, Sandra M. Correa, Adrian W.R. Serohijos, Paola Laurino*, Yariv Brotman*, Shimon Bershtein* Non-consecutive enzyme interactions within TCA cycle supramolecular assembly regulate carbon-nitrogen metabolism. Nature Communications 2024 15, 5285 
• Dindo, M.†; Bevilacqua, A.†; Soligo, G.; Calabrese, V.; Monti, A.; Shen, Q. A.; Rosti, M. Laurino, P.* Chemotatic interactions drive migration of membraneless active droplets. Journal of American Chemical Society 2024 146, 23, 15965-15976 
• Kozome, D.;  Sljoka, A.; Laurino, P.* Remote loop evolution reveals a complex biological function for chitinase enzymes beyond the active site. Nature Communications 2024,  15, 3227
• Toledo-Patino, S.; Pascarelli, S.; Uechi, G.; Laurino, P.* Insertions and deletions mediated functional divergence of Rossmann fold enzymes, PNAS, 2022, 119, 48, e2207965119.
• Gade, M. H.; Lynn Tan, L.; Damry, A. M.; Sandhu, M.; Brock, J. S.; Delanay, A.; Villar-Briones, A.; Jackson, C. J.*; Laurino, P.* Substrate dynamics contributes to enzymatic specificity in Human and bacterial methionine adenosyltransferases. JACS Au, 2021, 1, 12, 2349-2360.
• Clifton, B. E.; Fariz, M. A.; Uechi, G.; Laurino, P.* Evolutionary repair reveals an unexpected role of the tRNA modification m1G37 in aminoacylation. Nucleic Acid Res. 2021, 49, 21, 12467-12485. 
• Testa A.†; Dindo, M.†; Rebane, A.; Nasouri, B.; Style, R.; Golestanian, R.; Dufresne, E.;* Laurino, P.* Sustained Enzymatic activity and Flow in Crowded Protein Droplets Nat. Commun., 2021, 12, 6293.