Alessio Accardi, Principal investigator

Alessio studied physics at the University of Rome I “La Sapienza”. He did his undergraduate thesis work at the Institute for Biophysics of the CNR in Genova under the supervision of Dr. Franco Gambale on the pore-forming tetanus toxin. He got his PhD in Physics at the University of Genova, with a thesis on the gating and pharmacology of CLC channels under the supervision of Dr. Michael Pusch. He then moved to Brandeis University near Boston to work with Prof. Chris Miller on the structure and function of CLC channels and transporters. In 2007 he became an Assistant Professor in the department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Iowa and in 2010 he moved to Weill Cornell Medical College. 

Eva Fortea Verdejo, Graduate Student

Eva received her B.S. in Microbiology from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2016, she received her M.S. in Molecular Physiology and Biophysics from Université de Montréal. She is currently a graduate student in the department of Physiology and Biophysics. Her work focuses on functional studies of CLC proteins using electrophysiology and bioinformatics. Email: evf2011atmed.cornell.edu

Sangyun Lee, Postdoctoral Associate

Sangyun received his B.A and M.S. in Chemistry as major and Biology as minor from Seoul National Univ. He got his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Univ. of Chicago, where he studied the energetics underlying the H+/Cl- coupling in ClC-ec1, using various computational approaches, such as the free energy calculation, reaction kinetics modelling, and model optimization against the experiment data. Then, he continued his molecular modelling research at IBM research, studying the antigen recognition by T cell, nanoparticle-induced protein conformational change, and protein dynamics under electric field. He joined the Accardi lab in 2020, to conduct functional and structural studies of the ClC proteins, while combining his computational background to develop an efficient interdisciplinary research model for membrane protein study. Email:sal4012atmed.cornell.edu

Zhang Feng, Postdoctoral Associate

Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Science and Technology of China. He is currently a postdoctoral associate in the department of Anesthesiology. His work focuses on the structure and function of TMEM16 lipid scramblases using fluorescence assays and CryoEM. Email: zhf4001atmed.cornell.edu

Eleonora Di Zanni, Postdoctoral Associate

Eleonora received her M.S. in  Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from University of Genova. In 2012 she got her PhD in  Clinics, Genetics and Immunology at the University of Genova. In 2015 she started a postdoc at the Institute for Biophysics of CNR with Dr. Anna Boccaccio, where she studied the physiological role of TMEM16E in bone and characterized the biophysical properties of disease-causing mutations associated to Gnathodiaphyseal Dysplasia. In 2017 she joined the team of Dr. Alessandra Picollo to study the functional properties of CLC-7 disease mutants. Her work focuses on studying the transport mechanism of TMEM16 scramblases using cell based fluorescence assays and cryoEM. Email: eld4003atmed.cornell.edu

Sayan Chakraborty, Postdoctoral Associate

Sayan received his bachelor’s degree from West Bengal University of Technology, India.  He completed his PhD in Molecular and Structural Biochemistry with Professor Guozhou Xu at North Carolina State University where he worked on the structural determination of Leucine Rich Repeat Receptor Kinases (LRR-RKs) in Plants. Sayan is interested in understanding the structural and functional implications of membrane proteins and ion channels.  Email: sac4013atmed.cornell.edu

Past Members: