Prof. Dr. Cesare Montecucco

His major achievements have been the discovery of (i) the metalloprotease activity and of all the targets and site of cleavage of all clostridial neurotoxins; (ii) the metalloprotease activity specific for MAPK kinases and the design of biochemical assays and inhibitors of the anthrax lethal factor; (iii) the immunodepressive activities of anthrax lethal factor and edema factor; (iv) the anion channel activity and of the cellular mechanisms of action of the vacuolating toxin of H. pylori; (v) the structure and activity of the neutrophil activating protein of H. pylori and of related proteins. He has strongly contributed to the development of the membrane photolabeling technique and has provided theoretical contributions on (i) the mechanism of binding of clostridial neurotoxins to the presynaptic membrane, (ii) the mode of membrane translocation of bacterial protein toxins, (iii) the four-step model of entry of bacterial protein toxins with intracellular target, (iv) the mechanism of action of snake presynaptic toxins with PLA2 activity; (v) the cooperative mode of assembly of the super-SNARE complex.