Dr. Dario Conca

Biography

Dario Conca is a postdoctoral researcher in Marta Bally’s group at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University. His research focuses on the kinetics and early interaction of SARS-CoV-2 with cell surfaces. After completing his undergraduate degree in Physics Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, he became fascinated by the intersection of physics and biology. This passion led him to pursue a PhD at University College London, UK, where he developed a combined optical tweezers-light sheet microscopy setup to study weak single-molecule interactions in live cells. Following the completion of his PhD, Conca shifted his focus to the development and application of biophysical methods to address biological questions, joining Marta Bally’s group in 2020. His current project, funded by the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Individual Fellowship, investigates the interaction of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein with the cell membrane, aiming to understand the role of coreceptors and the effects of membrane complexity on viral binding kinetics. His research employs a variety of advanced biophysical techniques to study these interactions, and he also contributes to the understanding of binding kinetics and diffusion of viruses.

Research Interests