Gregorio Fernandez-Ballester

The research work is focused mainly on the study of the conformation of proteins, both soluble and membrane, and related conformational changes after interaction with effectors or other proteins. Major current research objectives are the computational design of proteins and the development of methodologies to predict "in silico" protein-protein and protein-small organic molecule interactions at the domain level. Predictions are based in the construction of position-specific scoring matrices derived from protein-ligand complexes, either protein or peptide, to improve the affinity and specificity of already known ligands, or as a tool to predict putative ligands of proteins of interest. The researcher has specialized in the use of structure-based methodologies such as virtual screening, docking, and molecular dynamics that are commonly used to discover compounds with biological activities, from natural or chemical libraries, that are used to screen the binding pockets of the protein of interest, and to find new molecules or new roles for already known molecules. This has led to the publication of numerous scientific articles, patenting and generation of spin-off companies. The researcher has been a member of IDiBE (UMH) since its creation.