معرفی
Vito Foderà is Professor of Biophysics at the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He leads a highly interdisciplinary research team working at the interface between physics, biology and pharmaceutical sciences. His laboratory, the Drug Delivery and Biophysics of Biopharmaceuticals group, focuses on understanding protein and peptide behavior to develop novel drug delivery systems and improve protein therapeutics.
Professor Foderà received his PhD in Physics from the University of Palermo in 2009, followed by postdoctoral work at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He joined the University of Copenhagen in 2009 and progressed from Research Associate to Assistant Professor (2014), Associate Professor (2016), and was promoted to Professor in June 2023.
His research spans four main interconnected areas: Protein and Peptide Self-Assembly (since 2006), Biophysics of Protein-Membrane Interaction (since 2014), Biomaterials for Drug Delivery (since 2017), and Protein Particles in Drug Formulations (since 2018). He combines theoretical frameworks with experimental techniques including UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray and neutron scattering, and optical and electron microscopies. His work bridges fundamental biophysics with pharmaceutical applications, particularly in developing advanced materials for nanomedicine and understanding protein-related neurodegenerative diseases.
Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong trend toward understanding protein aggregation mechanisms, particularly insulin and α-lactalbumin systems, with increasing focus on pharmaceutical applications. His research integrates computational modeling with advanced experimental techniques to connect molecular-level interactions to macroscopic material properties. Key disciplines represented in his work include biophysics, structural biology, pharmaceutical sciences, and materials science, with growing emphasis on translational applications in drug delivery and protein formulation.
- Villum Young Investigator Award (2018-2025, 8.6 M DKK)
- Villum Young Investigator Plus Award (2023-2026, ~4 M DKK)
Professor Foderà actively mentors a large research group including postdocs (Samuel Lenton, Mai Bay Stie, Marco Polimeni), PhD students (Kleopatra Kalouta, Xuedan Sun, Inna Brakti, Giorgia Puleo, Filippo Vitale, Xuezhi Zhou, Gabriele Lo Buglio), and numerous master's students. His research is supported by multiple significant grants including Villum Foundation awards, Novo Nordisk Foundation projects, China Scholarship Council funding, and industrial collaborations with Novo Nordisk A/S.
His laboratory maintains strong connections with international collaborators in academia, large-scale facilities, and industry. The group is affiliated with CPHSAXS (Small Angle X-ray scattering facility), LINXS (Lund Institute of Advanced Neutron and X-ray Science), and ISBUC (Integrative Structural Biology at University of Copenhagen), providing access to advanced instrumentation and expertise.
