rob.angelini

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Registered: 7 years, 3 months ago

I am a postdoctoral fellow (MSCA-COFUND), employed at the Institute of Life Science, Medical School, Swansea University (Wales, UK). My research interests include lipidomics and mass spectrometry as applied to biomedical research. I acquired most of my knowledge and technical skills during my stay at Angela Corcelli’s lab (University of Bari, Italy) where I carried out my Master’s Degree and PhD dissertation research. At the Corcelli lab, I was trained on deciphering the lipid composition of biomembranes of archaeal, bacterial and eukaryal cells, exposed to different environmental modifications including osmotic stress, oxygen availability, and exposure to pharmacologically active compounds. As a part of these studies I developed a direct MALDI-TOF-MS method for lipid analysis in native biological samples (i.e. skipping the lipid extraction procedure) and applied the direct coupling of TLC and MALDI-TOF-MS to the study of archaeal lipids. During my PhD studies I spent almost one year in the Schiller - Fuchs’s lab (University of Leipzig, Germany) where I employed MALDI-TOF-MS lipidomics for the study of blood serum lipid biomarkers of inflammation. Also at Angela Corcelli’s lab, I spent almost two years of postdoctoral research studies focusing on the mitochondrial lipid cardiolipin in Barth Syndrome. I developed a method for MALDI-TOF-MS analysis of cardiolipin for BS testing in native isolated leukocytes that allows the diagnosis in a fast and inexpensive way. Later, with the aim of increasing my knowledge and technical skills, I joined the Kagan team, at Pittsburgh University where I focused on the identification of oxidized lipids by LC/MS. Finally, I have sharpen my LC-MS analytical skills in the Piomelli lab at University of California, Irvine, where, for a short period, I have supervised the MS facility and routinely analyzed endocannabinoids and phytocannabinoids. I came back to Europe thanks to a successful MSCA-COFUND application, a three year postdoctoral Individual Fellowship. I am currently working in the Griffiths-Wang laboratory at Swansea University where I am setting up a MALDI-TOF-MS methodology to image sterols in brain as applied to neurological diseases. As long-term career goal, I am willing to stay in academia. I feel ready to be an independent scientist and I am currently targeting different funding bodies across Europe that provide schemes for early career scientists. However, considering the difficult situation of obtaining funds in academia, I am not excluding at all the private sector.

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