Dr Laura Spagnolo
- Reader (Molecular Biosciences)
telephone:
5133
email:
Laura.Spagnolo@glasgow.ac.uk
Biography
Laura obtained her MSc in Pharmacy at the University of Trieste, Italy. She performed her doctoral studies at the University of Padova, Italy, and EMBL Heidelberg, Germany, under the supervision of Angelo Fontana and Luis Serrano. After obtaining her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Laura moved back to Trieste for a short postdoc at ELETTRA, the Italian synchrotron. Fascinated by the study of protein machines working on nucleic acids, she undertook postdoctoral work at the Institute of Cancer Research, with Laurence Pearl, contributing fundamental information on the structural organisation and macromolecular plasticity of DNA-PK synapses within Non-Homologous End-Joining complexes.
Laura established her own research group in 2009 at the University of Edinburgh, supported by an appointment at the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (www.csec.ed.ac.uk). At Edinburgh, the Spagnolo group continued work on DNA damage and repair, as well as starting new projects on gene editing machines. In 2016, Laura moved to Glasgow, where she is making good use of the excellent local electron microscopy resources to consolidate her studies.
Research interests
The overarching theme of the research conducted in my laboratory is centered on mechanisms of genome editing and engineering. We study macromolecular complexes involved in CRISPR-Cas interference, RNA metabolism and DNA damage repair with an integrative structural biology approach.
Grants
Grants and Awards listed are those received whilst working with the University of Glasgow.
- Modernising the Electron Microscopy capabilities at the University of Glasgow
Medical Research Council
2022 - 2023
- The directionality mechanism of DNA site-specific recombination by serine integrases
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
2022 - 2025
- CryoEM - SULSA
Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance
2018 - 2022
- SMIC-SULSA
Scottish Funding Council
2018 - 2021
- The Scottish Macromolecular Imaging Centre (SMIC)
Medical Research Council
2017 - 2022
- Elucidating the molecular architecture of the Archaeal CMR complex, a key player in the unicellular immune response
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
2016 - 2017
- Determining the macromolecular structure and cellular function of an alternative MCM complex. University of St Andrews Reference: YMR025
Medical Research Council
2016 - 2017