Researchers

Arianna Contato’s research is focused on the differentiation and application of human-induced pluripotent stem cells to develop advanced disease models, enabling the exploration of underlying pathological mechanisms and providing a platform for drug discovery and for development of targeted therapeutic interventions. Her work places particular emphasis on the intricate crosstalk between neural cells, especially in the context of demyelinating diseases.

Marta Ribodino is a member of Physiopathology of neural stem cells lab since 2017, when she started her traineeship as a bachelor student under the supervision of prof. Annalisa Buffo. Then she continued as a Master student, writing a thesis entitled “Reactive features and neurogenic potential of striatal astrocytes upon excitotoxic lesion: role of the transcription factor Sox2”. Marta is now working in the lab as a PhD student studying the neuroanatomical and functional integration of grafts composed of human striatal neurons into rodent models of Huntington’s Disease. During her PhD, she is also actively collaborating with the laboratories of prof. Malin Parmar and of prof. Tomas Bjorklund in Lund, Sweden, where she spend research stays.

Marta’s current research focuses on understanding circuit reconstruction in human stem cell-derived striatal grafts, using rodent models of Huntington’s disease. Specifically, she investigates how these grafts mature and integrate into the host brain, and how this integration contributes to improvements in motor function. To advance this work, she employs light-based techniques to precisely control graft activity, aiming to uncover the role of neuronal activity in functional recovery and promote circuit plasticity. Additionally, Marta is developing innovative tools to study the reconstruction of two key striatal pathways—the direct and indirect pathways—and their selective modulation, with the goal of further exploring the therapeutic potential of stem cell-derived striatal grafts.

Giacomo Turrini obtained his Bachelor degree in Biotechnology in 2021 and his Master degree  in Biotechology in Neuroscience in 2023 at the University of Turin with the grade of 110/110 Cum Laude with the thesis “Transcriptomic analysis in the cerebellum: tackling the heterogeneity of astrocytes in the adult mouse brain”. During 2023 Giacomo spent a research stay in the laboratory of Professor Ludovic Telley at the Department of Fundamental Neurosciences at University of Lausanne. There, Giacomo learned new techniques to analyze spatial transcriptomics datasets.
From November 2023 Giacomo is enrolled in the PhD Program in Neuroscience of the University of Turin. In his PhD project he aims to disclose the functional heterogeneity of cerebellar astrocytes under the guidance of Professor Annalisa Buffo.
Giacomo is passionate about applying computational analysis to the study of multiomics data and microscopy imaging. He thrives in interdisciplinary environments, enjoying collaboration with experts from diverse fields to address the complexities of neuroscience.

Giacomo’s research focuses on cerebellar astrocytes. Specifically, he aims to unravel astrocyte heterogeneity in the mature mouse and human cerebellum, through high throughput transcriptome and morphological analyses. During his academic training he acquired basic abilities in molecular biology (DNA and RNA isolation, PCR, qRT PCR), microscopy (confocal and apotome microscopy acquisition and image analysis) and bioinformatics (proficiency in R and python coding languages).

He has developed expertise in the production and analysis of bulk, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomic datasets, including RNA extraction, sequence alignment to reference genomes, nuclei segmentation, dataset integration, cluster analysis, trajectory inference, gene ontology enrichment, and label transfer. Additionally, he has gained proficiency in histological and cytological techniques, as well as in the use of bright-field, fluorescence, Apotome, and confocal microscopy.