Curriculum Vitae

Born in Naples in 1962, Orlando Crescenzi graduated in Chemistry at the University of Naples in 1987, with top marks and cum laude, presenting a thesis which received the “G. Laonigro” award from the Italian Chemical Society. Shortly after he qualified to practice chemistry professionally.

During the period 1987-1989 he was recipient of a fellowship from the “L. M. Gelb Research Foundation” (Stamford, USA) at the Department of Organic and Biological Chemistry of the University of Naples. There he worked mainly in the field of applied spectroscopy, with particular focus on structural determinations by means of NMR techniques.

In 1990 he was appointed to a permanent position of Researcher in Organic Chemistry at the Department of Organic and Biological Chemistry of the University of Naples Federico II.

In 1992, under a fellowship from the EC, he spent a period at the “Institut für Organische Chemie und Biochemie” of the University of Bonn (Germany), which he devoted to the synthesis of dopamines specifically labelled with 13C; these were used to probe the chemical structure of the resulting polyphenolic polymers with the aid of heteronuclear Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) techniques.

Afterwards, his scientific interests expanded to the application of solution NMR to the conformational analysis of biological molecules, including in particular opioid-like peptides. Most of these studies were pursued within the frame of a collaboration with the research group of Prof. Piero A. Temussi (Department of Chemistry, University of Naples Federico II), and involved two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy to collect structural restraints, and simulated annealing/restrained molecular dynamics for structure determination.

From 1995 to 1997 he was on leave at the “Scripps Research Institute” (San Diego, CA, USA), where he worked on the structural determination of biomacromolecules by means of multinuclear multidimensional NMR techniques. Interest has also been devoted to the characterization of chemical exchange / segmental flexibility, which have been approached by the measurement of heteronuclear relaxation parameters, coupled with appropriate theoretical models for the dynamical behaviour. In the context of these studies, he also spent a period at the University of Nagoya (Japan).

After his return to Italy, these biostructural studies were developed in a series of spectroscopic and conformational physical-chemical investigations on several medium-size proteins. Among these, it is worth mentioning monellin, an unusual plant protein endowed with an intense sweet taste; the monomer of bovine seminal ribonuclease, an enzyme that exists in vivo as a homodimer with two different quaternary structures; a chemosensory protein from the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria; and a metallothionein from the Antarctic fish Notothenia coriiceps. In connection with these scientific interests, Orlando Crescenzi has been a member of the Organizing Committee of the EMBO workshop on NMR and molecular recognition (Ravello, Italy, October 2001); member of the Organizing Committee of the Meeting “Taste and food acceptance: chemistry and molecular biology of sweet, bitter and umami tastes” (Procida, Italy, April 2010); member of the Scientific Board and manager of the NMR Section of the Interdepartmental Centre for Physical-Chemical Methodologies (University of Naples Federico II).

Current research interests originated from collaboration with the group led by Prof. Vincenzo Barone (Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa; formerly at the Department of Chemistry, University of Naples Federico II), and concern the use of classical and quantum-mechanical simulation methods for the accurate structural and dynamic description of organic and biomolecular systems, ranging from simple organic molecules and free radicals of biological relevance, to large biomolecules like prion protein, collagen triple helix, and some ribonucleases.

Another research topic where theoretical approaches and spectroscopy converge is represented the ab initio computation of spectroscopic parameters (NMR, EPR, UV-Vis) for medium-to-large organic and biological molecules in complex environments. Approaches combining classical or ab initio molecular dynamics with DFT parameter computations, and including careful treatments of solvation effects, have been developed and employed in a number of cases of chemical, biochemical and technological interest. The approaches developed have also been the object of review papers. In the context of these research lines, Orlando Crescenzi has spent several scientific missions at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chemie – Chimie Paristech(Paris, France).

Orlando Crescenzi has been scientific coordinator of a research Unit on “Development and application of computational methods for the study of ion transfer in biomimetic systems controlled by peptides and proteins” within a PRIN project funded by MIUR (2003-2005), national Coordinator of the PRIN project “Hydrodynamic fluids to control the release of inhibitors on surface-bound enzymes: new approaches to screening” (research Unit project: “Development and application of computational approaches to model surface / protein / target / inhibitor systems for drug screening experiments”), and coordinator of a research Unit in the PRIN 2010-2011 project “Photophysical and photochemical properties of organic and biological compounds in solution and organized media”. Moreover, he has participated in PRIN projects funded by MIUR in 1999-2001, 2000-2002, 2001-2003, 2004-2006 e 2006-2008.

He has been in charge of the Integrated Laboratory “Physical-Chemical and Computational Methodologies” of the Regional Competence Centre on Industrial Biotechnologies (BioTekNet), and later Vice-Director of the “Infrastructures” Department of the Competence Centre, and member of the technical-scientific board of the Society BioStarNet S.c.a.r.l.

He has been member of the Board of Directors and reference person for biosystems-related activities in the “Virtual Integrated Laboratory for Large-scale Applications in a Geographically distributed Environment” (VILLAGE), a virtual laboratory aimed at fostering developments and applications of computational modelling, which has been recognized as “Reference Centre” by the Italian Interuniversity Consortium on Materials Science and Technology (INSTM). Since 2013 he coordinates the ad hoc Committee on “Scientific and Technological Computing” of INSTM.

Orlando Crescenzi has been vice-director (2008-2011) of the “Paolo Corradini” Department of Chemistry of the University of Naples Federico II. For several years he was also associated with the Institute for Chemistry and Technology of Polymers of the National Research Council (ICTP-CNR), and scientific coordinator of a project on the “Development of computational approaches for design and in silico characterization of polymeric materials” of the CNR Molecular Design Department, which over the time has been articulated with sub-projects (“modules”) in several CNR Institutes (ICTP, IPCF-Pisa, IMCB, ISMN, IPCF-Bari).

Orlando Crescenzi has been a member of Organizing or Scientific Committees of several Meetings; member of the Steering Committee of the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Division of Italian Chemical Society; member of the Management Committee of the COST Action “CODECS: COnvergent Distributed Environment for Computational Spectroscopy”.

The first teaching experiences of Orlando Crescenzi were in the field of Organic Chemistry, including laboratory assistance, and the course of “Organic Chemistry” for the Degree in Biology; later he has given courses in “Molecular Spectroscopy”, “Optical Spectroscopies”, “Physical Chemistry” (Degree in Chemistry), “Elements of Computational Modelling” (Degree in General and Applied Biology), “Physical Chemistry and Molecular Mechanics” (Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology).

In 2004 Orlando Crescenzi became Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry, and since 2011 he is Full Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Naples Federico II.

He has been a member of the Board of the doctoral schools in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, in Chemical Sciences, and in Astrochemistry (based in the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

He has been tutor of several Ph.D. students, both in Chemical Sciences and in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, and supervisor of several post-doctoral fellows. He has given lectures in several Schools organized by the Italian Chemical Society, and has presented invited lectures in National and International Congresses.

He is author of ca. 100 papers in international journals, which have received over 3100 (Web of Science) / 3190 (Scopus) citations, with an h-index of 29 (Web of Science) / 30 (Scopus).