Rita Berisio was born in 1972 in Naples, Italy. In 1995, she graduated in chemistry at the University of Naples Federico II (summa cum laude). From 1996 to 1998 she worked at the European Molecular Biology Lab in Hamburg and in 1999 she received her PhD at the University of Naples. 

Since 2001, Rita Berisio is a permanent researcher at the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging (IBB) of the Italian Research National Council (CNR), in Naples, Italy. In 2002-2004 she joined the group of Prof. Ada Yonath, Chemistry Nobel Prize in 2009, at the Max-Planck-Institute in Hamburg, Germany. Rita Berisio has been awarded the prize of the Italian Crystallography Association (AIC) in 2006 for her contribution to structural biology.

In 2002, she became Senior Researcher and in 2019 Research Director at the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging (IBB) of the Italian Research National Council (CNR), in Naples, Italy. Dr Berisio is co-author of about 150 publications on international journals (among which Nat Struct Biol, Mol Cell, JACS, PNAS, Structure), book chapters, and one patent.

She has been Guest Editor of a number of journals. Currently, Editorial Advisory Board Member of "Current Medicinal Chemistry" and referee Editor of Frontiers in microbiology. 

She has been responsible for Regional, National and International funding initiatives, eg: (i) Italian Ministry of Research, project PON03PE_00157. Role: PI, 2014-2017, Title: “Smart Generation”; (ii) Indigo Linking programme Italy-India-UK, funded by EU. Role: International Coordinator, 2015-2017. Title: “DRAT- Drugs against Tuberculosis”; (iii) COST Action (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) BM1003. Role: PI, 2010-2014  and Grant Holder 2010-2012. Title: “Microbial cell surface determinants of virulence as targets for new therapeutics in Cystic Fibrosis”; (iv) Mizutani Foundation for Glycoscience. Role: International Coordinator, 2011-2012. Title: “Molecular mechanisms of defense response induced by chitin oligosaccharides”; (v) Italian Research Council, Cooperation projects with Poland (PI, 2014-2016); with Japan, (PI, 2016-2017).; (vi) Italian Ministry of Research. Role: PI, 2011-2012. Title: “Structural studies of key proteins in the pathogenesis of M. tuberculosis”.

She is currently PI of several Nationa grants and Research Coordinator of the EU project BactiVax,  Anti-Bacterial Innovative Vaccines, funded under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions framework. https://www.bactivax.eu/principal-investigators

Research interests

1.    Elucidating the structure and in vitro function of key proteins involved in human pathogenesis

2.    Determining key regulatory mechanisms of cell wall modelling in pathogenic bacteria by coupling x-ray crystallography and biophysical techniques with computational methods and biochemical assays

3.    Elucidating structural and functional features of protein mediators of host:pathogen interactions 

4.    Study of molecular biomarkers of tumor and respiratory pathogeneses

5.    Vaccine development against bacterial infections