Stefano Gastaldello nominated to two new academic positions

Stefano Gastaldello has recently been nominated to two academic positions, Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet and Visiting Professor at Binzhou Medical University, in China.

Stefano Gastaldello established his research group at Uppsala University in 2014 and moved to the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet in November the same year.

His major contribution to the muscle physiology field so far has been to identify new skeletal muscle proteins which function is regulated by the attachment of a small protein called SUMO. SUMOylation is an important post-translational modification that regulates protein functions and contributes to several intracellular process including transcription, DNA repair, chromatin remodeling, signal transduction, etc. Particularly, various stress conditions are known to promote global changes in the SUMOylation network, both in cell cultures and at the organs level. Moreover, defect on the SUMOylation machinery have been associated with severe diseases such as neurodegeneration, muscle atrophy, cancer and heart failure.

The overall aim is to bring more knowledge into the muscle molecular mechanisms that occur during myogenesis and during short/long-term controlled mechanical ventilation in intensive care unit patients.

The results will shed light on basic questions in the muscle field that will lead to better treatment of muscle diseases and greater insights into regenerative medicine.

In October 2017 Stefan Gastaldello became Associate Professor in Physiology at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and in November he was nominated Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, at Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, China, where he will lead the Engineering Research Center for Diabetes Targeting Drugs and the International joint laboratory on Precision Medicine at Binzhou Medical University.