on October 1, 2007
Luca Varani graduated in chemistry at the University of Milan (Italy) with a thesis in structural biology. He then moved to the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology, obtaining a PhD degree at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2000. His PhD research focused on the role of RNA and protein interactions in regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level, culminating in the determination of the largest NMR structure and one of only 3 RNA -protein complexes available at the time. He also contributed to show the role of RNA structure in dementia, proving the viability of RNA as a therapeutic target.
After a brief spell in Florence, he moved to Stanford University (USA) as a postdoctoral fellow, being awarded an “EMBO Fellow” in 2003. At Stanford he completed the first NMR study on TCR-pMHC complexes, proposing a novel approach to the systematic characterization of protein-protein interactions.
