Curriculum in PDF: English CV

•Study of the DNA-Damage Response to ionizing radiation of different qualities (gamma/X rays, low energy protons) in human primary cells and cancer cells. •Analysis of gene and miRNA expression profiles in human cells exposed to genotoxic agents. Functional analysis of miRNA-mRNA interaction of DSB DNA repair. •Identification of molecular biomarkers of individual radiosensitivity in oncological patients under radiotherapy. •Nanotoxicology. Analysis of in vitro toxicity of differnt types of nanoparticles.

1. "Role of microRNAs in the DNA-Damage Response (DDR) to ionizing radiation ". MiRNAs are small non coding RNAs acting as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression by binding to complementary 3’UTR of their target mRNA and causing mRNA translational repression or destabilization and decay; as a consequence miRNAs reduce the expression of target genes. DDR allows DNA damage detection, signal propagation and transduction to a multitude of effector proteins, which promote cell survival, activate cell cycle arrest to allow DNA repair, or apoptosis when cells are unable to properly repair DNA. DDR is regulated at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional level. More than half of DDR genes contain conserved miRNA target sites. 2. "Individual response to radiotherapy: identification of molecular biomarkers ".The study aims at defining a genetic signature of genes of the DNA Damage Response (DDR) pathway to define different degrees of patient radiosensitivity. Individual gene expression data from blood samples isolated from patients undergoing radiotherapy are integrated with clinical evaluation of tissue radio-sensitivity and with cytogenetic analyses in vitro. The research project is in collaboration with the Istituto Oncologico Veneto IOV-IRCCS (UOC of Radiotherapy), and with colleagues of the Dept. of Biology and Molecular Medicine of Padova University.