Feliciano Protasi

University of Chieti, Italy

Professor Feliciano Protasi is currently Full Professor of Physiology (from 2011) at the University of Chieti (Italy), where he is the leader of a research group formed by 8 elements (Researchers, Post-Docs, PhD students and Technicians) and supported by the Italian Telethon ONLUS, a Foundation interested in studies in human diseases of proven genetic origin, and by the National Institute of Health (USA), thanks to a collaboration with Professor Robert Dirksen at the University of Rochester,NY, USA (also speaker in this meeting).  

After graduating in 1991 in Biological Sciences at the University of Perugia, Dr Protasi moved to the USA to join the laboratory of Professor Clara Franzini-Armstrong at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world leaders in the field of muscle ultra-structure. There he was involved in projects aiming to understand the differences between skeletal and cardiac excitation-contraction (EC) coupling, the mechanism that activates release of calcium (and hence contraction) in muscle. In the second part of his experience abroad, Dr Protasi joined the laboratory of Professor Paul Allen at the Harvard Medical School where he received training in molecular biology while continuing his studies in the interaction between proteins involved in EC coupling.

In 2002, Dr. Protasi returned to Italy at the University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti as Associate Professor to join the newly opened Institute CeSI (Center for Research of Ageing). There he started to established his own lines of research that are mainly focused in unraveling the patho-physiological mechanisms underlying myopathies caused by calcium miss-handling in striated muscles, including malignant hyperthermia and central core disease.