María Leo

Roberta Leonardi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the School of Medicine at West Virginia University. She received her BS/MS in Chemistry from Catania University, Italy, and a PhD in Biochemistry from Southampton University, UK. She then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN.

Dr. Leonardi's laboratory is interested in the mechanisms that regulate coenzyme A (CoA) levels, an essential cofactor that functions as the major acyl group carrier in the cell. CoA and the derived acyl-CoAs are substrates for hundreds of metabolic reactions and for the post-translational modification (acylation) of histones and thousands of other proteins. This allows CoA and its thioesters to regulate metabolic pathways through multiple mechanisms, including substrate availability, modulation of the activity of metabolic enzymes, and gene expression. Dr. Leonardi has extensive experience in the characterization of the biochemical, structural, regulatory properties and in vivo function of enzymes involved in the regulation of this cofactor. Her laboratory employs a combination of biochemical, genetic and targeted metabolomics approaches to characterize the role of the CoA-degrading enzymes in the dynamic regulation of subcellular (acyl-)CoA pools and (acyl-)CoA-dependent pathways in a variety of organs, including liver, kidneys, skeletal muscle, and brown adipose tissue.