ROSINI ELENA

Elena Rosini graduated with honor in Biological Sciences at University of Insubria in 2001. In 2007 she gained the Ph.D. in Biotechnology from University of Insubria (title of thesis: “Protein engineering of D-amino acid oxidase: design of new activities for industrial and medical applications”). Since 2007 she has been a Post-Doc at University of Insubria in the research group of Prof. L. Pollegioni. She has been responsible of the Core Lab of the Research Center “The Protein Factory”, Politecnico di Milano and University of Insubria (2009-2018), where proteins from virus to human origin were produced and developed (by protein engineering) for several biotechnological applications. She has been appointed by University of Insubria in Varese as Associate Researcher (RTDA in October 2017 and RTDB in June 2021). She was visiting researcher at the lab of Prof. D. Neri (ETH Zürich), working on the research project “A targeted enzymatic therapy based on oxidative stress: a promising tool for cancer treatment” (EMBO Short Term Fellowship). The scientific career of Elena Rosini focused, as a general topic, on the protein engineering and on the production of recombinant proteins, as FAD-dependent oxidases, acylases, and ligninolytic activities. She acquired a wide experience (as shown by published papers) in the evolution of enzymatic activities by using rational and directed evolution methods. She exploited her experience in molecular biology, protein expression, protein engineering, protein biochemistry, cell biology, molecular modeling, docking analysis and biocatalysis in the field of enzyme biotechnology. This expertise allowed the production of a new enzymatic activity in the bioconversion of cephalosporin C into β-lactam antibiotics, the production of a new D-amino acid oxidase for the production of a prototype biosensor for the analytical determination of D-amino acids in food, the engineering of a glycine oxidase to detect glycine and sarcosine in biological fluids, the evolution of a D-amino acid oxidase to be employed as a pro-drug converter in cancer enzyme-therapy, the production of an histamine oxidase for the application in a biosensor for the analytical determination of histamine in biological samples, and the development of an "enzymatic toolbox" for lignin degradation. More recently, she has been involved in the development of multi-enzymatic cascade systems for the production of high value aromatic compounds through the use of in vitro enzymatic systems or whole cell systems. Further research projects concern the production of antibacterial peptides for the functionalization of a bacterial nanocellulose for biomedical applications and the expression of recombinant proteins (namely hormones and the SARS-CoV-2-S protein) in CHO mammalian cells.