MMassimo Sandal received his doctorate qualification from the University of Bologna in 2008 for his research on active conformers of proteins. He has gone on to conduct research on proteins in departements of Biochemistry and Biotechnology across Europe. Following on from the University of Bologna, he was a post-doctoral FEBS Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a post-doctoral associate at the University of Verona in 2012. From 2013 to 2016 he was associated to the German Research School for Simulation Sciences in Jülich, Germany.