Carmelo La Rosa

Carmelo La Rosa is an Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Catania, Italy, with research focused on protein folding-misfolding dynamics and amyloid aggregation mechanisms in diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. His work bridges experimental biophysics and computational modeling to elucidate how metal ions, lipid bilayers, and nanoparticle interfaces influence amyloid toxicity. Since 2011, he has led the Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Laboratory, advancing model membrane systems.

Key research areas include:

• Elucidating prefibrillar oligomer structures in amyloid diseases
• Investigating GXXXG motif stabilization in ion-channel-like amyloid pores
• Developing lipid-chaperone hypothesis framework for membrane damage
• Applying DSC, CD, MD simulations to thermodynamic analysis

His publications (spanning 1996-2024) emphasize membrane-protein interactions, computational drug design, and nanoparticle-based diagnostic tools. He has served on editorial boards (Molecules, World Journal of Diabetes) and evaluated grants for NSERC, CINECA, and ANR. Recent work (2021-2024) explores lipid homeostasis in Alzheimer's, nanodisc integrity for membrane studies, and electrostatic regulation of amyloid-membrane interactions.