Andrea Gargano

Meet Andrea Gargano

Early inspiration
A lucky set of circumstances got me on a plane to Berkeley at the end of my Master’s degree. I haven’t quite figured out why Frank Svec accepted a young and quite (scientifically) illiterate Italian as an intern in his group but my experience there was great – it was there I discovered my enthusiasm for science.

Research 
My research area is the separation and mass spectrometric analysis of large molecules. Currently, I am working on solutions to analyze proteoforms using LC-MS and I’m starting to look at the characterization of synthetic polymers.

Prediction
In the field of LC-MS, the hyphenation with other detection strategies to allow for more direct quantitative analysis. More generally, in analytical chemistry, maybe something coming from unexpected candidates, like pH meters.

Advice 
I benefitted a lot from working in different work environments, so I would suggest everyone try such experiences (and maybe do it multiple times). There are many things that can be learned from seeing different labs, from research vision to lab safety.