Davide Roncarati graduated cum laude in Industrial Biotechnology in 2003 at the University of Bologna. In 2007 he obtained the PHD degree in Molecular Biology in the same university, carrying out research in the lab of Prof. Vincenzo Scarlato. During that period DR has characterized the regulatory circuit governing the regulation of heat shock genes’ expression in the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori. As a visiting PHD student, DR joined for 12 months the pharmaceutical company ‘Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics’ in Siena (today GlaxoSmithKline). During this period, he studied the regulation of different genes involved in the protection of the human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis against reactive oxygen species (ROS), in the laboratory of Molecular Biology run by Dr. Isabel Delany.
In 2007 he won a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship to work on the analysis of different molecular mechanisms that control gene expression upon environmental signals essential for H. pylori pathogenesis, in the laboratory of Prof. Scarlato at the Department of Biology, University of Bologna. Moreover, he was also involved in the dissection of the regulatory circuit of two pleiotropic metal-responsive transcriptional regulators (Fur and NikR), which control the concerted expression of genes coding for proteins involved in metal homeostasis and virulence.
In November 2008 he was appointed Research Associate in Molecular Biology at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Bologna.
Since October 2019 DR is Associate Professor in Molecular Biology at the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna.
From January 2009 to July 2010 he has worked, as a visiting scientist, in the laboratory of Dr. Petros Ligoxygakis at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford (UK), where he deepened some topics about host-pathogen interaction, using Drosophila melanogaster as a model host. During this period, he has also worked in the group of Dr. Maria Harkiolaki, Division of Structural Biology, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (University of Oxford, UK), where he was involved in the structural characterization of soluble receptors of Drosophila, responsible for the recognition of bacterial pathogens.
His research combines biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology to address the molecular mechanisms adopted by bacteria to optimally respond to the external environment. Specifically, his present research focuses on the characterization of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory strategies in different bacterial species, in collaboration with several italian (B. Colonna - Sapienza Università di Roma; B. Zambelli – UniBO; R. Budriesi – UniBO; M.P. Costi – UniMoRe; O. Jousson – UniTN) and international research groups (J. Malone – JIC Norwich UK; O. Soutourina – UParisSud France; K. Otteman – UCSC USA).
Professor Roncarati is member of the SIMGBM (Società Italiana di Microbiologia Generale e Biotecnologie Microbiche) scientific society. He has served as referee to international scientific journals (Mol Microbiol, J. Bacteriol, NAR, Microorganisms, International Journal of Molecular Sciences and others) and to several funding agencies. In 2020 he has been Guest Editor of the Special Issue "Host Pathogen Interactions" for the “Microorganims” journal.
During his scientific career, he published 28 papers on international scientific journals (including Nature Communications, FEMS Microbiology Reviews, Nucleic Acids Research, PLoS Pathogens, PLoS Genetics, Molecular Microbiology) and 1 book chapter.
DR attended several national and international meetings.
