- Degree in Medicine from the University of Modena, Italy (1977)
- Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge, UK (1987).
- Postdoctoral fellow with César Milstein at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the genetics and structure of antibodies.
- Head of Laboratory at the MRC Centre in Cambridge from 1991 with funding from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now known as Cancer Research UK).
- Member of the MRC staff since 1997.
- Professor of Immunology and General Pathology (part time teaching position) at University of Pavia since 1997.

- Structure and function of polypeptide growth factors
- Antibody engineering
- Novel strategies for protein expression, selection and engineering

Structural basis of HGF/SF and MET signalling
Gherardi E, Sandin S, Pethoukov M, Finch J, Youles ME, Ofverstedt L-G, Nunez R Blundell T, Vande Woude G, Skoglund U, Svergun D. (2006)
Proc natl Acad Sci USA 103: 4046-4051

Insights into the structure/function of HGF/SF from studies with individual domains.
Holmes O Pillozzi S, Deakin, J, Carafoli F, Kemp L, Butler PJG, Lyon ML, and Gherardi E. (2007)
J mol Biol 367: 395-408

A Mechanistic Basis for Converting a Growth-Factor Receptor Agonist to an Antagonist.
Tolbert D, Daugherty J, Gao CF, Xie X, Miranti C, Gherardi E, Vande Woude G, and Xu EH (2007)
Proc natl Acad Sci USA, 104:14592-7.

Structure of the human receptor tyrosine kinase Met in complex with the Listeria monocytogenes invasion protein InlB
Niemann HH, Jäger V, Butler PJ, van den Heuvel J, Schmidt S, Ferraris D, Gherardi E and Heinz D 2007
Cell, 130: 235-46

X-ray and neutron small-angle scattering analysis of the complex formed by the Met receptor and the Listeria monocytogenes invasion protein InlB
Niemann HH, Petoukhov MV, Härtlein M, Moulin M, Gherardi E, Timmins P, Heinz DW and Svergun D (2008)
J mol Biol, 377: 489-500

Engineering the NK1 fragment of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor as a MET receptor antagonist. Youles M, Holmes O, Petoukhov MV, Nessen MA, Stivala S, Svergun DI, Gherardi E. (2008)
J Mol Biol. 377:616-22.

Interactions of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor with glycosaminoglycans reveal an important interplay between the presence of iduronate and sulfate density. Catlow KR, Deakin JA, Wei Z, Delehedde M, Fernig DG, Gherardi E, Gallagher JT, Pavão MS, Lyon M. (2008)
J Biol Chem. 283:5235-48

Ligand-Mediated Dimerization of the Met Receptor Tyrosine Kinase by the Bacterial Invasion Protein InlB. Ferraris DM, Gherardi E, Di Y, Heinz DW, Niemann HH.
J Mol Biol. 395:522-32, (2010)

Structural basis for agonism and antagonism of hepatocyte growth factor.
Tolbert WD, Daugherty-Holtrop J, Gherardi E, Vande Woude G, Xu HE.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 107:13264-9 (2010)

Coupling growth-factor engineering with nanotechnology for therapeutic angiogenesis.
Sinha Roy R, Soni S, Harfouche R, Vasudevan PR, Holmes O, de Jonge H, Rowe A, Paraskar A, Hentschel DM, Chirgadze D, Blundell TL, Gherardi E, Mashelkar RA, Sengupta S.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 107:13608-13 (2010)

No projects are available to students for the current accademic year.