Gennaro Esposito

Visiting Professor of Chemistry Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: MSc in Chemistry (Laurea in Chimica) Naples University

Research Websites: NMR Group

Research Areas: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular NMR, Protein Biophysics, Structure and Function of Biopolymers


Gennaro Esposito was born on September 19, 1953, in Naples where he did his university studies and got the Laurea in Chimica cum laude (MSc in Chemistry with honors) in 1979. From 1980 to 1982 he was a chemistry teacher in secondary schools and worked at the NMR spectroscopy laboratory of Naples University. From Sept. 1982 to Jan. 1990 he was the researcher at the NMR industrial research laboratory of Assoreni, later renamed Eniricerche, (Monterotondo - Rome). In Feb. 1990 he moved to the University of Udine, first as a biophysics researcher and later, from Sept. 2000 to Aug. 2018, as an associate professor of Applied Physics.  Since Sept. 2018 he moved to NYUAD for his current position of Visiting Professor of Chemistry.

Besides the academic and teaching duties, Esposito has always been working and is still active in the field of NMR spectroscopy and biopolymer biophysics. In particular, he has been involved in the structural and functional characterization of immunoactive peptides, oligonucleotides, proteins, transcription factors and amyloidogenic proteins, coupled to the setup of new NMR methods. He authored about 150 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. While in Udine he was also responsible for the mass spectrometry laboratory of MATI center. Esposito did scientific activity in many laboratories (Jun.-Dec. 1983 and Mar. 1985-Sept. 1986 Biochemistry Dept., Oxford University, UK; Jul.-Dec. 1987 School of Pharmacy, London University, UK; Aug. 1993-Jul. 1994 Lausanne University, CH). He was invited as a Visiting Professor at University J. Fourier, Grenoble, F (Jul.-Aug. 2001) and at Institute for Protein Research, University of Osaka, Japan (May-Jun. 2012, June 2013). At NYUAD he spent first a sabbatical in 2014 and then a spring term appointment from Jan. 2015 to Aug. 2017, always as a Visiting Professor of Chemistry.

Esposito has served as a member of many advisory boards and committees and has supervised about 25  PhD or degree (MSc or BSc) students. He is currently on the Editorial Board of BBA (Protein and Proteomics) and ISRN Structural Biology. He was invited speaker at many national and international conferences. In 2013 he received the Gold Medal for his research activity in the joint meeting of the German, Slovenian and Italian Magnetic Resonance Associations. As a PI, a unit-responsible scientist or as a national coordinator, he received several research grants throughout his activity (National Research Council – 1994, 1996, 1998; University Ministry COFIN/PRIN– 1998, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2013; University Ministry FIRB - 2003, 2007; European Union – 1998, 2006; Health Ministry – 2001, AARE–2018).