Giovanni Spagnolli, PhD

Dr. Spagnolli is a co-founder and currently the CTO of Sibylla Biotech. During his doctoral research, he worked on developing and validating the platform for identifying folding-interfering degraders that the company now employs. In particular, his studies led to the discovery of the first small molecule degrader acting by targeting a folding intermediate of the cellular prion protein (Spagnolli et al. 2021). Concurrently, he worked on applying enhanced sampling molecular dynamics techniques to achieve atomic-level characterization of the prion propagation mechanism. His thesis work and additional contributions to different multidisciplinary projects resulted in more than ten peer-reviewed publications and several talks at international meetings.
Currently, Dr. Spagnolli coordinates the company's R&D activities, including the development of the platform and its application for the discovery and optimization of small molecules.