Ikerbasque Research Professor
building 800, Derio (Bizkaia)
Dr. Abrescia received his undergraduate degree from the Università degli Studi di Milano (Milan, Italy) in Physics after defending his Minor Thesis in 1996 on crystallogenesis and X-ray crystallography of DNA fragments. Following his graduation he joined the Subirana lab at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Barcelona-Spain). He completed his graduate studies at the beginning of 2001; the work was supported by a pre-doctoral Training Mobility Research Marie Curie fellowship. During his graduate studies he also worked as a visiting student, at the Institute of Cancer Research-UK, at Yale and Harvard (USA). In spring 2001 he began his appointment as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Division of Structural Biology at The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at University of Oxford with MRC Prof. DI Stuart.
Since October 2008 he has held a tenured Ikerbasque Research Professorship from the Basque Foundation for Science and he is Group Leader at the Structural Biology Unit at the CIC bioGUNE. Major contributions during his academic training, among others, have been a PNAS article in 2002, two Nature articles in 2004, a NSMB and Mol Cell in 2008.
Since becoming Group Leader, Dr. Abrescia authored several articles, mainly as corresponding author, in relevant journals such as PLoS Biolog, Nuclic Acids Research, Ann. Rev. Biochem., Nature Methods. He has presented his scientific activities in more than 40 congresses, 14 of which as an invited speaker.
The Abrescia Lab’s field of expertise is in Structural Biology and Virology. The research group is focused on the understanding of viral pathogenesis, the virus-cell recognition mechanisms and the assembly principles of viruses.
Major targets of the investigation are viruses with an internal membrane and biomedical relevant human and animal enveloped viruses (members of the Flaviviridae and Bunyaviridae families).
The Abrescia Lab integrates state-of-the-art X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy, electron tomography structural techniques and biophysical methods such as Circular Dichroism and Multi-laser light scattering (MALLS) with expertise in recombinant protein production in bacterial and mammalian cell systems.
Specifically, access to high-end crystallographic and electron microscopy infrastructure is routinely available which allows the group to resolve the viral structures to atomic detail. New lines of research directed to the development of DNA vaccines and to the study of the mechanical properties of viruses are been established with success.
Finally, the group combines the generated structural knowledge with functional studies thanks to a network of worldwide recognized collaborators in the academic and private sectors.
