Giacomo Fiorin

Biography

Giacomo Fiorin received a MS in Physics from the University of Padua, where he developed and implemented a theory of the Coriolis interaction in the proton emission from deformed nuclei. He later obtained a PhD in Statistical and Biological Physics from the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, where he studied the activation of calcium-signaling proteins by calmodulin using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. During his postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, he used MD simulations of proteins in the viral membrane, to model their molecular mechanisms of infection and to screen for new antiviral drugs. Later, he developed models of biological membranes to predict their supramolecular structure, mechanical properties, and permeability to small molecules and macromolecules. Since 2011, he also taught the Biostatistics courses in the College of Science and Technology, training 220+ students from undergraduate and graduate programs of CST, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Engineering. Dr. Fiorin leads the development of the collective variables module (http://colvars.github.io/), a software that implements free energy calculations and enhanced sampling in the simulation and modeling programs NAMD, VMD and LAMMPS.

Research Interest

Giacomo Fiorin's research interests include to understand the self-assembly of biological matter, the flow of chemicals into the human body, and the replication of viruses and bacteria.