Francesco Simone Ruggeri

Francesco Simone Ruggeri is a Junior Research fellow at the Darwin College and Research Fellow at the Department of Chemistry & Centre for Misfolding disease at University of Cambridge. He holds a PhD in biophysics obtained in 2015 at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he acquired a strong expertise on scanning probe microscopy and single molecule methods.

In his research, he continuously push the boundaries of the methods of analysis of modern biology and physics for investigating complex and heterogeneous biological samples and biomaterials at the nanoscale. I have deep expertise in scanning probe microscopy, surface science, spectroscopy, data analysis, image processing and single particle characterisation.

The objective of his present and future research is the development and application of novel Physical methods at the interface with Chemistry and Biology to shed light on the molecular processes underlying the onset of neurodegenerative disorders and study functional biomaterials for biomedical applications.

In particular, he has first demonstrated the application of peak-force tapping mode and of infrared nanospectroscopy (AFM-IR) to correlate the nanomechanical, chemical and structural properties of biological samples at the nanoscale in air and liquid environment. This approach has brought new insights into the formation and structural characterization of misfolding of proteins and their correlation with the onset of neurodegenerative disorders.