Expression and characterization of human proteins involved in neurological disorders and for biotherapeutic applications

The Ph.D. thesis is focused on the development of new strategies for the expression and characterization of human recombinant proteins used to investigate the molecular bases of two neurological diseases and to develop new NMR strategies for the characterization of biomaterials incorporating protein therapeutics. The first part of the research activity was focused on clarifying important aspects about the role of Abeta-peptides and alpha-Synuclein in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, respectively. The last part of my research activity was focused on the development of new NMR strategies for the characterization of protein-based biomaterials and bioinspired composites. Therapeutic protein L-Asparaginase II (ANSII) and the potential drug carrier Transthyretin (TTR) were selected to investigate the use of SSNMR in the characterization of hydrogels incorporating proteins and in the evaluation of the preservation of the higher-order structure.