Mario Borgnia, PhD

Dr. Borgnia is an expert in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), with a focus on resolving the structural heterogeneity of macromolecular assemblies implicated in neurodegenerative diseases, including α-synuclein fibrils in Lewy body diseases. His work centers on advancing cryo-EM methodologies to enable high-resolution structural characterization of fibril polymorphs and their native cellular context. He has led the development and implementation of automated, high-throughput cryo-EM workflows, including cloud-based remote data acquisition and open-source robotic specimen preparation platforms, expanding access to advanced structural biology approaches. These methods have been successfully applied to diverse systems such as viral glycoproteins, membrane protein complexes, and α-synuclein filaments. In the ASAP Seeding project, Dr. Borgnia will apply cryo-EM and cryo-ET to structurally characterize α-synuclein seeds amplified from cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue, integrating structural and biochemical analyses to link fibril polymorphs with clinical phenotypes.