Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine

Lorenzo Berti, Ph.D.

Assistant Research Chemist
Oak Park Research Building, Suite 2301
Sacramento, CA 95817
PH: 916 734 0905
e-mail

Research Interests

My research is in the field of nanoscience and specifically in exploring the interactions between inorganic nanomaterials and biomolecules. By taking advantage of synthetic chemistry, bioconjugation and other biomolecular tools I am attempting to create new bionanomaterials with advanced properties.

My goal is to develop new synthetic strategies for creating multi-functional nanoparticles and to gain a better understanding on how nanomaterials interact with biomolecules. The methods and knowledge acquired through this research will possibly lead to next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutic approaches for cancer and other diseases.

Representative Publications

Berti, L., D'Agostino, P.S., Boeneman, K., Medintz, LL. Improved Peptidyl Linkers for Self-Assembling Semiconductor Quantum Dot Bioconjugates, (2009), Nano Res. , 2, 121-129.

Berti, L., Medintz, LL., Alessandrini, A., Facci, P. A one-pot functionalization strategy for immobilization of proteins onto a linear DNA scaffold, (2009), Nanotechnology, 20, 235101.

Alessandrini, A., Berti, L., Gazzadi, G.C., Facci, P. Imparting chemical specificity to nanometer-spaced electrodes, (2008), Nanotechnology, 19, 355303.

Berti, L., Burley, G.A, Nucleic Acid and Nucleotide-Mediated Synthesis of Inorganic Nanoparticles, (2008), Nature Nanotech., 3, 81-87.

Medintz, LL., Berti, L., Pons, T., Grimes, A.F., English, D.S., Alessandrini, A., Facci, P., Mattoussi, H. A Reactive Peptidic Linker for Self-Assembling Hybrid Quantum Dot-DNA Bioconjugates, (2007), Nano Lett. , 7, 1741-1748.

Berti, L., Alessandrini, A., Bellesia, M., Facci, P. Fine-Tuning Nanoparticle Size by Oligo(guanine)n Templated Synthesis of CdS: an AFM study, (2007), Langmuir, 23, 10891-10892.

Berti, L., Alessandrini, A., Menozzi, C., Facci, P. Controlled DNATemplated Metal Deposition: Towards Ultra-Thin Nanowires (2006), J. Nanosci. Nanotech. , 6, 2382-2385.

Berti, L., Alessandrini, A., Facci, P., DNA-templated photoinduced silver deposition, (2005), J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127, 11216-11217.

Berti, L., Xie, J., Medintz, L.L, Glazer, A.N. and Mathies, R.A., Energy-Transfer Cassettes for Facile Labeling of Sequencing and peR Primers, (2001), Anal. Biochemistry, 292, 188-197.