
GIOVANNA PONTARIN
Title: Professore associato
SSD: BIO/06 - Comparative Anatomy and Citology
Address: VIALE GIUSEPPE COLOMBO, 3 - VIA UGO BASSI, 58/B - PADOVA
Phone: 0498276283
E-mail: giovanna.pontarin@unipd.it
Teaching in current academic year
Course | Degree |
---|---|
CELLS BIOLOGY | Biotechnology |
ADVANCED CELL BIOLOGY | Molecular Biology |
Curriculum
Current position: Researcher RTD A, Department of Biology, University of Padova Education: 2001 Laurea in Biological Sciences, University of Padova 2006 diploma in Clinical Pathology (scuola specializzazione), University of Padova Professional experience: 2001-04 Fellowship, Department of Biology, University of Padova 2005-09 Research fellowship, Department of Biology, University of Padova 2009-11 Fellowship, Department of Biology, University of Padova 2011-13 Research fellowship, Department of Biology, University of Padova Teaching: “Cell Biology” and “Techniques in mammalian culture cells” for the undergraduate students of Biotechnology master degree. International research experience: 2005 - visiting scientist in the laboratory of Prof. Lars Thelander at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Umea University, Sweden. 2014 - visiting scietist in the laboratory of Prof. Bruce Stillman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, U.S.A. with short-term EMBO fellowship. Research activities: My specific interests have concerned the metabolic pathways regulating the intracellular concentration of DNA precursors (dNTPs). In particular I focused on mitochondrial dNTP (mt dNTP) pools. I developed a new method to purify mt dNTPs from mammalian cells and I investigated on mitochondrial diseases due to impaired dNTP metabolism. I set up a cellular model and studied the human mitochondrial syndrome MNGIE (Mitochodrial NeuroGastroIntestinal Encephalomyopathy) due to thymidine phosphorylase deficiency. I investigated the role of the novel ribonucleotide reductase subunit p53R2 related to mtDNA maintenance and nuclear DNA repair. I studied the physiological function of SAMHD1 as the major catabolic enzyme degrading the dNTPs related to the cell cycle progression. At the moment I am interested in endothelial cell metabolism and in particular in the glutaminolysis pathway which is largely unexplored in vascular system. Taking advantage of my previous knowledge I started a new line of research to study the role of the glutaminases GLS1 and GLS2 related to cell proliferation and redox homeostasis using actively growing HUVECs as a model of endothelial cells during angiogenesis in normal and pathological conditions.
Curriculum in PDF: English CV
Articles published in the last 5 years
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SAMHD1-deficient fibroblasts from Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome patients can escape senescence and accumulate mutations
FASEB JOURNAL2020Franzolin E, Coletta S, Ferraro P, Pontarin G, D'Aronco G, Stevanoni M, Palumbo E, Cagnin S, Bertoldi L, Feltrin E, Valle G, Russo A, Bianchi V, Rampazzo C -
The Contribution of Mitochondrial Ion Channels to Cancer Development and Progression
CELL PHYSIOL BIOCHEM2019Bachmann M, Pontarin G, Szabo I -
The dNTP triphosphohydrolase activity of SAMHD1 persists during S-phase when the enzyme is phosphorylated at T592
CELL CYCLE2018Tramentozzi E, Ferraro P, Hossain M, Stillman B, Bianchi V, Pontarin G
Research area
Vascular metabolism in health and disease.
Proposals for thesis