Alessia is a neuroscientist trained in neurodevelopmental biology and neurodegeneration. After studying Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Turin (Italy), she moved to London (UK) joining UCL as a research assistant. She pursued a PhD in Robin Lovell-Badge lab at The Francis Crick Institute and later joined Paul Matthews and John Hardy groups at the UK Dementia Research Institute in Imperial College London and UCL for her post-doc where she received an Alzheimer’s Society career development grant. She is currently aMSCA postdoctoral fellow in Annalisa Buffo group at NICO at University of Turin. Through her career, Alessia received multiple awards, including the AD/PDJunior Faculty Award, and organised scientific meetings, such as the Future Leader seminar series and the yearly Young Embryologist Network conferences. She was involved in teaching and outreach activities, as Teaching fellow at Queen Mary University and facilitator at the Great Exhibition Road Festival.
Research focus
During her MSc degree and PhD projects, Alessia’s research experience spanned on multiple aspects of stem cell and developmental biology, investigating neuronal progenitors’ migration during dentate gyrus and GnRH neurons development, neuroepithelial progenitor’s neuro-to-glia switch in potential, the role of adult neurogenesis in memory formation and the stem cell potential of adult parenchymal astrocytes after brain injury.
For her post-doc she transitioned into Alzheimer’s Disease research in humans, pioneering imaging mass cytometry to identify vulnerable neurons and the underlying pathophysiological events.
In her current MSCA-funded project she will translate her findings into an Alzheimer’s Disease mouse model where the molecular mechanisms leading to selective neuronal loss can be tested.
In the future, she aims at leveraging our knowledge on brain development to identify the mechanism underlying neuronal susceptibility in Alzheimer’s Disease for supporting neuronal resilience.
