{"id":3503,"date":"2025-01-19T12:52:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T11:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/?p=3503"},"modified":"2025-01-19T12:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T11:59:07","slug":"phd-student-profile-sara-foiadelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/2025\/01\/19\/phd-student-profile-sara-foiadelli\/","title":{"rendered":"PhD student profile, Sara Foiadelli"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n\n\n<p><strong>PhD Student<\/strong>: Sara Foiadelli (ORCID n. <a href=\"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-6158-4999\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">0009-0005-6158-4999<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3508\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Sara-Foiadelli-_foto-PhD.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Sara-Foiadelli-_foto-PhD.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Sara-Foiadelli-_foto-PhD-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Supervisor<\/strong>: Prof. Francesco Molinari (DeFENS)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Co-tutor<\/strong>: Dr. Davide Berlanda (Company tutor)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dean<\/strong>: Prof. Diego Mora<\/p>\n<p><strong>Research area<\/strong>: Chemistry and Biochemistry<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Research topic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Biotechnological processes for the transformation of agri-food residues into added-value molecules<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Sustainable bioprocesses for plant secondary metabolite biotransformation<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The demethylation of natural products has the potential to generate derivatives with an enhanced bioactivity, but chemical methods are poorly selective.<sup>1<\/sup> The selective demethylation of methoxy-compounds has been reported in <em>Priestia megaterium<\/em>, operated by the CYP102A1 encoded BM3-p450 cytochrome.<sup>2<\/sup> In this project the <em>P. megaterium<\/em> DSM32 strain will be used for the selective demethylation and subsequent glycosylation of methoxy-containing natural products for the generation of bioactive compounds with improved properties. Different strategies will be pursued: i) fermentation will be tested using different waste residues and growth media to enhance the sustainability of the process; ii) immobilized whole cells will be used in flow reactors and rotating bed reactors to improve their efficiency; iii) the enzymes involved in the bioconversion will be produced as recombinant proteins and characterized.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, semi-rational protein engineering will be applied to Cytochrome P450 BM3 monooxygenase from <em>Bacillus megaterium<\/em>. This strategy will be undertaken to design and produce mutants with improved efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>1) Harvey AL, Edrada-Ebel R, Quinn RJ. The re-emergence of natural products for drug discovery in the genomics era. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2015 Feb;14(2):111-29. doi: 10.1038\/nrd4510<\/p>\n<p>2) Ponzone C, Berlanda D, Donzelli F, Acquati V, Ciulla R, Negrini A, Rovati M, Evangelista D, Fata E, Ciceri D, Perterlongo F, Cabri W. Biotransformation of colchicinoids into their corresponding 3-O-glucosyl derivatives by selected strains of Bacillus megaterium. Mol Biotechnol. 2014 Jul;56(7):653-9. doi: 10.1007\/s12033-014-9741-5.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project keywords<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>biocatalysis, fermentation, flow chemistry, natural bioactives<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contacts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>University of Milan, Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS), Via Mangiagalli 25, 20133 Milan, Italy; <a href=\"mailto:sara.foiadelli@unimi.it\">sara.foiadelli@unimi.it<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Collaborations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Davide Berlanda, Dr. Otto Bazzana (Biotechnology Lab at Indena SpA)<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sponsor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Fellowship sponsor<\/em>: Indena SpA<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Publications<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cocorullo, M.; Bettoni, C.; Foiadelli, S.; Stelitano, G. Moles of Molecules against <em>Mycobacterium abscessus<\/em>: A Review of Current Research. Future Pharmacol. 2023, 3, 637\u2013663. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/futurepharmacol3030041<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PhD Student: Sara Foiadelli (ORCID n. 0009-0005-6158-4999) \u00a0 Supervisor: Prof. Francesco Molinari (DeFENS) Co-tutor: Dr. Davide Berlanda (Company tutor) Dean: Prof. Diego Mora Research area: Chemistry and Biochemistry \u00a0 Research topic Biotechnological processes for the transformation of agri-food residues into added-value molecules \u00a0 Project Synopsis Sustainable bioprocesses for plant secondary metabolite biotransformation The demethylation of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93,59],"tags":[111,100,318,354],"class_list":{"0":"post-3503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-phd-student-profile","9":"tag-biocatalysis","10":"tag-fermentation","11":"tag-flow-chemistry","12":"tag-natural-bioactives","13":"anons"},"modified_by":"admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3510,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503\/revisions\/3510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/foodsystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}