Serra Immacolata, PhD
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biotechnology of Fermentations
room 4023, building U4
room 4054, building U4, tel. +39 02 6448 3428
see also: Scopus Author ID: 22942087500, Loop
Keywords
Microbial Biotechnology; Biorefinery; Enzymes; Residual biomasses; Biocatalysis; Metabolic engineering
Research interest
The main research interests are:
- Exploitation of microbial biodiversity for the production of chemicals, biofuels and enzymes. In particular, one research line concerns the up-cycling of residual biomasses by microbial bioprocesses for the production, for instance, of single cell oils and lactic acid. Dr. Serra research activity has dealt also with the characterization of osmotic stress in marine yeasts and in S. cerevisiae by flow cytometry techniques, the identification of enzymatic activities of biocatalytic interest in marine yeasts and the optimization of growth conditions of marine yeasts in order to maximize the expression of the enzymes of interest.
- Biotransformations catalyzed both by isolated enzymes (soluble and immobilized) and by whole cells. Identification, cloning, heterologous expression, characterization and immobilization of enzymes for biocatalytic purposes and their use in batch and flow systems.
Selected articles
-Di Lorenzo R.D., Serra I., Porro D., Branduardi P. State of the art on the microbial production of industrially relevant organic acids (2022) Catalysts, 12 (2), art. no. 234. https://doi.org/10.3390/catal12020234
-Donzella, S., Serra, I., Fumagalli, A., Pellegrino, L., Mosconi, G., Lo Scalzo, R., et al. Recycling industrial food wastes for lipid production by oleaginous yeasts Rhodosporidiobolus azoricus and Cutaneotrichosporon oleaginosum (2022) Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, 15(1). DOI: 10.1186/s13068-022-02149-3
-Robescu M.S., Serra I.,* Terreni M., Ubiali D.,* Bavaro T. A multi-enzymatic cascade reaction for the synthesis of vidarabine 5'-monophosphate (2020) Catalysts, 10 (1), art. no. 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/catal10010060
-Serra I., Guidi B., Burgaud G., Contente M.L., Ferraboschi P., Pinto A., Compagno C., Molinari F., Romano D. Seawater-based biocatalytic strategy: stereoselective reductions of ketones with marine yeasts (2016) ChemCatChem, 8 (20), pp. 3254-3260. https://doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201600947
Serra’s Lab – #SerraLab_BtBs
last update: June 2022