Professor Cristina De Castro
University of Napoli, Italy

"The sweet, the sour, and the spicy sides of microbial glycans"

  • When: 26th February 2025, Drinks and Nibbles start at 5:30pm and the lecture at 6:15pm.
  • Where: Rutherford House Lecture Theatre 1 at Pipitea Campus, Wellington
  • Professor Cristina De Castro graduated in chemistry with honours in 1992 from the University of Napoli, with her research focusing on the structural determination of polysaccharide fractions from Ceratozamia spinosa. Her doctoral research focused on the structural determination of polysaccharides from phytopathogenic bacteria, during which time she had the opportunity to collaborate with Professor Dr O. Holst in Germany. She undertook postdoctoral work on structural studies on carbohydrates from beer/yeast at the Carlsberg Research Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, after which she joined the University of Napoli as a research assistant in 1999.
    Professor De Castro has been associated with the University of Napoli since then and has been a visiting scientist on various occasions in the laboratories of Professor Jesus Jimenez-Barbero at Madrid University, Spain and Professor Jim Van Etten at Lincoln University, USA, where she studied carbohydrate molecular modelling and giant viruses’ biology, respectively.
    Her interest in carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry began when she pursued a bachelor’s thesis on the structure of the mucilage produced by a plant, ceratozamia spinosa. Her work has continued over the years, focusing on glycans from microbial sources such as lipopolysaccharides, oligosaccharides and capsular polysaccharides. More recently, Professor De Castro turned her attention to the glycobiology of giant viruses, contributing to the development of a new area of research.
    Professor De Castro has published extensively and has been part of the Italian Society of Chemistry, the Naturalist Society, and the American Society for Glycobiology, among others. She lends her expertise as editor and reviewer for several journals and collaborates with various prestigious research institutions, including the Academy of Immunology and Microbiology at the Institute for Basic Science, Korea, and the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Nebraska, USA.

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