Michele Vendruscolo, PhD’s research is aimed at understanding the molecular origins of neurodegenerative disorders and at opening novel opportunities for drug discovery to prevent, delay or treat these conditions.

He is directing an interdisciplinary program at the Chemistry of Health Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, which includes the Centre for Misfolding Diseases and an incubator space for spin-out companies for translational research. This program brings together concepts and methods from chemistry, physics, engineering, genetics and medicine, using a combination of in silico, in vitro and in vivo approaches.

The premise of this research program is that physical and chemical sciences can provide relevant contributions to address biological questions to understand the normal and aberrant behavior of proteins and their links with human disease. This leads to the investigation of the nature and consequences of the failure of protein homeostasis, and its association with ageing and neurodegenerative disorders.