Dr. Veronica Dodero

My scientific career developed in Argentina, Spain and Germany and reflects a continuous commitment to international mobility, interdisciplinary research and scientific collaboration. I obtained my PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2003, funded by scholarships from CONICET (Argentina) and DAAD (Germany), under the supervision of Julio C. Podestá and Terence Mitchell (TU Dortmund). Between 2003 and 2007 I completed postdoctoral stays in Spain, mainly in the working group of Prof José L. Mascareñas at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. I was involved in five publications there, including articles in Angewandte Chemistry (2006) and Nature Communications (2013). I then joined the research group of Prof María Luz Rodríguez at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where I obtained the homologation of my PhD. Shortly afterwards, in 2008, I obtained a position as Adjunct Research Scientist at CONICET (Argentina), which marked the beginning of my independent scientific career. Building on my expertise in peptide chemistry and molecular self-assembly, I established my own research line and developed collaborations with scientists in Europe and Latin America.

In 2015, I moved to Bielefeld University to join Prof Norbert Sewald's research group as an Alexander von Humboldt scholar, stipendiary for experienced scientists. There, I independently initiated and established a new research programme on the self-assembly of gliadin-derived peptides and their role in gluten-associated diseases. This research direction, which I developed, expanded from basic studies on peptide oligomerisation to studies of their biological effects in cellular models. The successful establishment of this programme led to the acquisition of competitive DFG third-party funding as Principal Investigator and to the formulation of our current hypothesis on the involvement of proteolytically resistant gliadin peptide oligomers in the pathogenesis of gluten-associated diseases. The international environment at Bielefeld University and the support of Prof Norbert Sewald and Prof Thomas Hellweg enabled me to combine chemical, biophysical and biological approaches in my research.