CV Science

Luca Monticelli PhD Chemistry

Course and current status

2015 – present   Team leader at IBCP (CNRS UMR 5086), Lyon, France

2013 – 2015         Senior Researcher at IBCP (CNRS UMR 5086), Lyon, France

2009 – 2013         Senior Researcher at DSIMB (INSERM UMR-S 665), Paris, France

2008 – 2009         Research Associate, Dept. Physics, Helsinki Univ. Technology, Finland

2003 – 2007         AHFMR post-doctoral fellow, Dept. Biological Sciences, Univ. Calgary, Canada

2002 – 2003         CISI post-doctoral fellow, Dept. Chemistry, Univ. Milan, Italy,

2002 – 2003         Lecturer (Chemistry) at the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. San Raffaele, Milan, Italy

2000 – 2001         visiting scholar, Dept. Molecular Pharmacology, Brown Univ., Providence, RI, USA

Scientific summary

My main interest is in membrane biophysics and in the interaction between biological membranes and nano-sized particles. In particular, I am interested in understanding how man-made materials (nanoparticles, polymers, common pollutants) enter biological membranes and perturb their structure, dynamics, and function.

The main tools in my research are molecular simulations at different levels, from ab initio to atomistic and coarse-grained models. My research is coupled to the development of computational methods for the study of biological systems, in the spirit of multi-scale modeling. Since 2005 I collaborate at the development of the MARTINI coarse-grained force field, which has emerged as one of the most powerful and most widely used tools for large-scale biomolecular simulations.