Protein Folding and Metal Ions

Claudio M. Gomes is group leader at the Instituto Tecnologia Quimica e Biologica, a research institute affiliated with the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Oeiras, Portugal. Born in 1970, Claudio earned his PhD from the Instituto Tecnologia Quimica e Biologica in 1999, as a Gulbenkian PhD program in biology and medicine graduate. From 2000 onward, he gradually switched his research interests from bioenergetics and metalloprotein structure-function toward protein folding and structural biophysics of misfolding diseases. Until setting up his independent laboratory in 2003, he was assistant professor at the Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he started teaching in 2000. Claudio has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers.

Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede has been a professor in biological chemistry in the Chemistry Department at Ume?niversity, Ume?Sweden since 2008. Born in 1968, she earned a PhD in physical chemistry from Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1996. During 1997-1998, she did a postdoctoral period at Caltech, Pasadena, California. In 1999 she began her independent research career, with a focus on the role of metals in protein folding, as a chemistry professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana. After 5 years at Tulane, she moved to Rice University, Houston, Texas in 2004 and became a professor in biochemistry. Pernilla has graduated 10 PhD students to date, has obtained several awards, and has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers.