Matteo, born in Lugano (Switzerland), obtained an MSc in Computer Science (2008) and a PhD in computational biophysics (2012) in Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). During his PhD supervised by Prof Matteo Dal Peraro he developed of POW, a flexible parallel optimization environment. POW was applied to the prediction of pore-forming toxin Aerolysin heptameric conformation and of type-III secretion system’s basal body.
In 2013 he joined the research groups of Prof Justin Benesch and Prof Dame Carol Robinson FRS at the University of Oxford. His research, funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship, focused on the development of new computational methods for the prediction of protein molecular assembly guided by ion mobility, cross-linking, SAXS and electron microscopy data, as well as their application to the study of small Heat Shock Proteins and protein-lipid interactions.
With the support of an EPSRC early career fellowship, in 2017 he established his independent research in Durham University, where in 2020 he was appointed Associate Professor in soft condensed matter physics. In 2024 he moved to Edinburgh, taking a joint Reader position in Biomedical Artificial Intelligence between the Schools of Informatics and Chemistry.
In his free time Matteo may be found playing classical guitar, hiking, befriending crows, or practicing Wudang kung fu, of which is instructor.
Degiacomi research group 