Born in Bologna (Italy), he performed his undergraduate studies at the University of Bologna and the University of Pennsylvania (USA). After obtaining a PhD in chemistry from the University of Birmingham (UK), he went to the University of Leuven (BE) and University of Oxford for a further post-doctoral training in protein biophysics and nanopore technology. In 2010 he received an ERC Starting Research Grant to start his independent research at the University of Leuven (BE) and in 2014 he moved to the University of Groningen (NL) where he became full professor in 2021. His independent research has been focussing on nanopore biophysics, single-molecule enzymology, single-molecule proteomics and sensing, and designing artificial transmembrane machines. in 2021 I setup a start-up company – Portal Biotech - for the commercialisation of nanopore technology.