Professor Calebiro studied medicine in Milan and Stockholm, obtaining a specialisation in endocrinology and metabolic diseases from the University of Milan. He then spent 10 years at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Wuerzburg in Germany, part of which as a Humboldt Fellow, before joining the University of Birmingham in 2018. From January 2021, he will become Co-Director of COMPARE, a flagship research centre in partnership with the University of Nottingham dedicated to the study of membrane proteins and receptors with advanced optical methods.
His research focuses on G protein-coupled receptors, which mediate the effects of several hormones and neurotransmitters, and are the targets of at least 30% of all drugs on the market. His group has developed a number of new and innovative optical methods that allow for the investigation of GPCR signalling in living cells. The methods have allowed Professor Calebiro and his team, which is made up of biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers and computer scientists, to investigate some of the fundamental mechanisms at the basis of GPCR signalling, and clarify the pathophysiology of endocrine diseases such as hypothyroidism or Cushing’s syndrome.