I am a chemist-by-training with an expertise in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as applied to biological systems. After developing a strong fascination towards glycobiology and NMR during my Masters degree at the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen, I moved to University of East Anglia where I obtained my PhD in 2018, specialising in the development of novel NMR approaches to study protein-carbohydrate interactions.

In my two post-doctoral posts that followed, in the NMR department of the School of Pharmacy at the University of East Anglia, I continued exploring biological systems by NMR and developing new techniques to answer biological questions ranging from the fields of drug discovery to host-microbiota interactions and environmental microbiology.

In these post-doctoral years, I had the ambition of using NMR to study biological systems in an untargeted manner and in conditions as close as possible to their physiological environments, with a focus on microorganisms. As a QIB Early Career Fellow, my aspiration is to bridge the existing gap between NMR and microbiology, by studying live gut microbes by NMR in real time and underpinning the microbial metabolic pathways associated with health and disease.

I believe that tapping into the potential of NMR spectroscopy, a powerful and versatile tool to answer molecular questions in an untargeted fashion, to interrogate complex biological systems is an underexplored avenue that will broaden our understanding of the host-microbiota interactions.

Key publications

Monaco, S., Tailford, L. E., Bell, A., Wallace, M., Juge, N., & Angulo, J. (2024). Multifrequency-STD NMR unveils the first Michaelis complex of an intramolecular trans-sialidase from Ruminococcus gnavus. Bioorganic Chemistry, 153, 107906. doi: 10.1016/j.bioorg.2024.107906

Monaco, S., Angulo, J., & Wallace, M. (2023). Imaging saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR: Affinity and specificity of protein–ligand interactions from a single NMR sample. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(30), 16391-16397. doi: 10.1021/jacs.3c02218

Monaco, S., Walpole, S., Doukani, H., Nepravishta, R., Martínez‐Bailén, M., Carmona, A. T., … & Angulo, J. (2020). Exploring Multi‐Subsite Binding Pockets in Proteins: DEEP‐STD NMR Fingerprinting and Molecular Dynamics Unveil a Cryptic Subsite at the GM1 Binding Pocket of Cholera Toxin B. Chemistry–A European Journal, 26(44), 10024-10034. doi: 10.1002/chem.202001723

Monaco, S., Tailford, L. E., Juge, N., & Angulo, J. (2017). Differential epitope mapping by STD NMR spectroscopy to reveal the nature of protein–ligand contacts. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 56(48), 15289-15293. doi: 10.1002/anie.201707682

Owen, C. D., Tailford, L. E., Monaco, S., Šuligoj, T., Vaux, L., Lallement, R., … & Juge, N. (2017). Unravelling the specificity and mechanism of sialic acid recognition by the gut symbiont Ruminococcus. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02109-8