ESR introduction and

outline ESR Project 3

Born in Rome, Italy, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in health biotechnology at the Catholic University in Rome in 2014.

She frequented the Pathological Anatomy Lab directed by Luigi Maria Larocca where she worked on haematopoietic stem cells from healthy donors and patient with myelodysplastic syndromes to evaluate the potential presence of differences and alterations.

For the master’s degree she decided to move to the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia to graduate in medical biotechnology to enhance her knowledge in regenerative medicine.

There, she conducted her master’s internship in the Gene Therapy lab directed by Michele de Luca where she worked with primary human keratinocytes aiming to define a specific epidermal stem cells gene signature.

After the graduation in 2017 she had a brief experience at the Hubrecht institute, Utrecht (NE), as guest researcher in the lab of Niels Gejisen to explore the biology of mouse embryonic stem cells and the iTOP intracellular delivery technology.

In November 2017, she moved to the epigenetics lab of Raffaella Santoro at the University of Zurich (UZH), to work on a project related to lncRNAs and their role in cardiac proliferation.

Since August 2019, she is a Ph.D. student at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences at King’s College London. As part of the group of Mauro Giacca she is carrying out her project related to cardiac proliferation, in the context of the H2020 TRAIN-HEART consortium. In particular, she is investigating the molecular mechanism behind the increased proliferation of cardiomyocytes that occurs upon addition of the beta-alkaloid compound named Harmine. This will greatly help the understanding of cardiomyocytes biology and how we can increment the regeneration rate of these cells after myocardial infarction eventually leading a full recovery of the organ.


Collaborators:

- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (group of Prof. Eschenhagen, experimental pharmacology and toxicology)

- Miltenyi Biotec GmbH (group of Dr Eckardt, cardiac research)

Host Institution

King's College London

ESR: Giorgia Rizzari


Supervisors:

Main supervisor: Prof. Mauro Giacca

Co-supervisor: Dr Elena Chiavacci