CURRICULUM VITAE
Dr Giovanni Murtas
Name and Surname Giovanni Murtas
Nationality Italian
Address Viale San Bartolomeo 15, int. 11, Grottaferrata, 00046 (RM) E-mail:
Telephone Cell-phone: +39 3405864656
Office: +39 (0)6 49934213
Home: +39 06 94546286
EDUCATION
1992 Doctoral degree in Biological Sciences
Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Dip. Biologia Molecolare e Genetica.
Thesis: "Functional characterization of the rolB gene promoter of Agrobacterium rhizogenes in planta
WORK EXPERIENCE
2005-2009 Senior Grant Holder, Centro “E. Fermi” Roma.
“Minimal life”: a Synthetic Biology approach to construct e semi-synthetic minimal cell as a model for early living cells
Pubblications: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
2007 Visiting Scientist/Invited Lecturer, KITP, UCSB, Santa Barbara, USA
(Jan-Feb) Evolution of Molecular networks, Workshop and School
2003-2004 Visiting Scientist BioGeM/SZN,/ Università Roma Tre
Research in Genetics and Genomics in Arabidopsis thaliana
1999-2002 Research Fellow Warwick University, Department of Biology, England,
UK. Functional location of phytochrome function in Arabidopsis thaliana
Publications 2, 4.
1994--1999 Post-doc. Cambridge Laboratory, JIC England, UK,
ESD4, a gene regulating flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana
Lab Head: Prof. George Coupland
Publications 1, 3, 5, 6.
1992-1994 Fellowship BBSRC, John Innes Institute, Virus Department UK. Functional characterization of the Helper component of the CaMV Virus. Lab Head: Prof. R. Hull.
1990-1992 Research towards the thesis, Università “La Sapienza” Dipartimento di Biologia Molecolare e Genetica, Rome Italy. Research work on the Agrobacterium Rhizogenes activity in plants.
Supervisor: Prof. Paolo Costantino
CONSULTING
2008 INVITED EXPERT (Synthetic Biology) /Workshop/FET Proactive – Shaping the next FP7workProgramme Designing alternative bio-inspired informationcommunication technologies (ICT) Brussels, 6 February 2008.
PUBLICATIONS AND PATENTS
1) The regulation of flowering time by day length in Arabidopsis. G. Coupland, M.I. Igeno, R. Simon, R. Schaffer, G. Murtas, et al., Review, "Control of plant Development: Genes and Signals 1997 " Dublin .Publisher: SEB eds., 105.
2) How plants tell the time. Giovanni Murtas and Andrew J Millar.
Current Opinion in Plant Biology 2000 (impact factor: 10.8), 3:43-46, Current Biology Publications,
3) Early in short days 4, a mutation in Arabidopsis that causes early flowering and affects the expression of the flowering time gene FLC. Giovanni Murtas*., Paul H. Reeves.* et al *Joint first authors. Development 2002 (impact factor 9.16), 129 (23): 5349
*4) The circadian clock that controls gene expression in Arabidopsis is tissue-specific. Simon Thain, Giovanni Murtas et al., Plant Physiology 2002 (impact factor 6.1); 130 (1) 102-110
*4) CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS Leaves Have More Than One Clock, EDITORS' CHOICE
Science, STKE 2002,Vol. 2002, (impact factor 30.9) Issue 151, p., tw347
5) A nuclear protease required for flowering-time regulation in Arabidopsis reduces the abundance of SUMO conjugates. Giovanni Murtas et al.,.Plant Cell 2003 (impact factor 11.08), Oct 1, 15 (10)
6) Patent filed 5/6/1997 "Regulation of Flowering time with ESD4 gene"
Inventors: Giovanni Murtas, Paul Reeves and George Coupland.
7) P.L. Luisi, P. Stano, G. Murtas, Y. Kuruma, T. Ueda
En route to semi-synthetic minimal cells. In: "Proceedings of the Bordeaux Spring School on Modelling Complex Biological Systems in the Context of Genomics. April 3rd - 7th 2006" P. Amar, F. Képès, V. Norris, M. Beurton-Aimar and J.-P. Mazat (eds.).EDP Sciences, 2007, Les Ulis (Paris). pp. 19-30
8) Murtas, G., Kuruma, Y., Bianchini, P., Diaspro, A., Luisi, PL.
Protein Synthesis in liposomes with a minimal set of enzymes
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Nov 9;363(1):12-7. Epub 2007 Aug 15. (impact factor 3.8),
9) Murtas, G
The semi-synthetic “Minimal Cell”: a model for early living cells.
Proceeding of the meeting: Basic Questions about the origin of life, Erice,Italy, 2-6 October 2006. OLEB 2007
10) Giovanni Murtas
Minimal Cells during the origin of life
Darwin, Editoriale Darwin S.r.l. 2007 November/December
11) Stano, P.; Murtas, G., and Luisi, P. L.
Semisynthetic Minimal Cells: New Advancements and Perspectives
In: "Protocells. Bridging Nonliving and Living Matter". S. Ransmussen, M. A. Bedau, L. Chen, D. Deamer, D. C. Krakauer, N. H. Packard and P. F. Stadler (eds.); MIT Press, 2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts; pp. 39-70.
12) Murtas G
Internal lipid synthesis and vesicle growth as a step toward self-reproduction of the minimal cell. Systems and Synthetic Biology accepted for publication November 2009(DOI: 10.1007/s11693-009-9048-1)
13) Review/book: The evolution of protocells
Giovanni Murtas et al., to be published in 2010 in Lectures on Synthetic Biology, publishing company: Morgan & Claypool
14) Book: Synthetic Biology
Editors: Giovanni Murtas and Alfonso Jaramillo
Publishing company: Springer, Boston, MA. USA.
To be published in 2010
15) Review Artificial assembly of a minimal cell
Giovanni Murtas , Molecular BioSystems, Mol Biosyst. 2009 Nov;5(11):1292-7.
16) Protein synthesis within liposomes. Giovanni Murtas
Methods in Enzymology to be submitted in 2010
FUNDING
The minimal cell project was funded by HFSP and Centro Enrico Fermi
PRESS RELEASE
New Scientist “Life begins again” 7 July 2007
The Guardian “Scientists a step nearer to creating artificial life”
The Guardian Thursday September 6 2007
BBC News News - Science/Nature - Creating life in the laboratory, October 2007
CONGRESS/ORAL PRESENTATIONS
2006 2006“Basic questions about the origin of life” Ettore Majorana C., Erice, Italy, (Talk)
2007 Synthetic Biology 3.0 Conference, 24-27 June, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, (Talk)
2007 Centro Enirco Fermi, November 2007, The project “minimal life” (Talk)
2008 Advances in Synthetic Biology, Wellcome Trust Centre, Cambridge, UK, (Talk)
2007 Evolution of Molecular Networks, KITP, SantaB., California,USA, (Invited Speaker)
2008 Semi-Biotics Systems, Workshop EU network, , Malta, (Invited Speaker)
2008 Life under (re)constraction,S. on Synthetic Biology VBC, Vienna. (Invited Speaker)
2008 International Frontieres in Synthetic Biology , Dicembre 1-2 2008,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Ma, USA
Organizer/Scientific committee/ Speaker)
2009 European Systems & Synthetic Biology, 14-15 September 2009
Genopole, Evry FRANCE
Organizer/Scientific committee/Speaker
TEACHING
Biological Sciences Department, Warwick University
Lectures in Molecular Biology , 1999-2000 and 2000-2001
SZN/Naples, Italy
Lectures in Biotechnology: 2001- 2002.
Università Roma tre, Dipartimento di Biologia
2005-2006. 2 Lectures in Synthetic Biology
2007-2008. 4 Lectures in Synthetic Biology
COMPUTING: Working knowledge in Windows PC and Macintosh: GCG analysis, Internet databases, Bio-Imaging programmes and Microsoft Excel, Power point
LINGUAGE: Fluent in English and Spanish
Course: English for “academic writing” (The University of Warwick)
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