Alessandra Villa

Alessandra was educated as a chemistry at the University of Milano. After a Ph.D.in quantum chemistry, she moved to Groningen University  and she started to work in the field of biomolecular simulation. Then, she worked at Goethe University and at MPI for polymer science in Germany and recently at Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Her main research interest is to elucidate the molecular interactions that govern cellular processes using biomolecular simulations.  She has wide experience both in combining experimental and simulation techniques and in combining molecular models (multiscale apporach) to solve biochemical and biophysical questions.  A large part of her work focuses on the development of molecular models both at the atomistic and coarse grained levels to better describe how biomolecules interact. Alessandra is working for European Center of Excellence BioExcel, with  focus on  user-driven-development of GROMACS software package and member of the Molecular Biophysics Stockholm.   She is active in the GROMACS community and manage of the GROMACS forum , actively contribute to the Competency Hub (browse competencies, career profiles and training resources to advance your career in the life sciences)

Projects

• Multiscale modelling of axonal subcellular components.
• GROMACS user-driven development.

       Developed training material

• GROMACS tutorials using Jupiter Notebook on Introduction to Molecular Dynamics, Introduction to Membrane-Protein Simulation, Free energy of solvation,  Potential of mean force using AWH method, Free energy of solvation using AWH method.
• Lecture on Nucleic Acid Structure
• Basis of molecular dynamics simulations (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.13322848)  BioExcel Summer School Lecture material. 
• Learning-pathway on Using HPC infrastructure to perform biomolecular simulations and Version control with Git

       Webinars or Lectures

• Basis of molecular dynamics simulations (part I and part II) -  lecture delivered as part of the 2021 BioExcel Summer School on Biomolecular Simulations

• Molecular dynamics meet docking: A use case on antibody design - BioExcel Use Case