Ricercatori

Ricercatori

VERENA BISCARO

Verena Biscaro was born in Milano in 1992 and has a degree in Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology and Neuropsychology at University of Milano Bicocca. She carried out an experimental thesis about the theme of the influence of syntactic and lexical information of a sentence on the directional error in a bisection task, in aphasic and non-aphasic left brain damaged patients. She
carried out her post-graduated internship at Casa di Cura del Policlinico in Milan, participating in a prospective study on perseverations in patients with right brain injury. Since September 2018 she has been working at the Need Institute as a neuropsychological psychologist and researcher, dealing with forms of cognitive simulation and rehabilitation through technological devices in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

MARIA LO GIUDICE

Maria Lo Giudice was born in Palermo in 1986 and has a degree in neurobiology at the Università La Sapienza in Rome. At the Department of Neurosciences of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità she completed her experimental thesis work aimed at studying the effects of a recombinant manganese superoxide-dismutase (rMnSOD1) on neurodegeneration. Subsequently she completed the PhD in neuroscience with a thesis entitled “the role of CaSR in Alzheimer’s Disease pathomechanisms”, at Biotalentum Ltd in Budapest, a company dedicated to the development and research on neurons derived from human stem cells induced by the iPSCs technology, within the European project “CaSR Biomedicine” – Marie Curie training network. Since November 2019 Maria Lo Giudice, as a researcher at the Need Institute, has activated a program of neurobiological studies on Alzheimer’s Disease, first in the laboratory of neurobiology for translational medicine at the Casa di Cura del Policlinico in Milan and currently at the Research Institute Pharmacological Mario Negri.

SILVIA BONO

Silvia Bono, graduated in Biology, completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences in Firenze, carrying out a study aimed at identifying the mechanisms responsible for the suppression of the BCR/Abl protein in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia cells in conditions of energy restriction. Subsequently, at the laboratory of neural stem cells, in Milano, she carried out studies on rare neurodegenerative diseases such as Charcot Marie Tooth Disease 2A and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Silvia Bono, as a researcher at the Need Institute since March 2020, carried out neurobiological studies on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at the laboratory of neurobiology for translational medicine at Casa di Cura del Policlinico in Milan.

LUCIA BUCCARELLO

Lucia Buccarello graduated in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the university of Milan. At the department of the neurosciences of the Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute she carried out her experimental thesis aimed at studying the mechanism of action through which the oligomers of amyloid beta, which accumulate in brains affected by the Alzheimer’s Disease, induce synaptic dysfunction and deterioration of cognitive functions. She subsequently obtained a research doctorate, in collaboration with the University of Milan and the Mario Negri Institute, analyzing the impact of diet on the accumulation of amyloid beta plaques in Alzheimer’s Disease. She continues her career as a post-Doc focusing her studies on the mechanisms contributing to synaptic dysfunction and neuronal death in neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, at the Istituto EBRI – Rita Levi Montalcini Foundation in Romex, she was responsible for examining the role of the Tau protein during the cellular process of SUMOylation. Lucia Buccarello, as a researcher of the Need Institute, was active from February 2021 to March 2022 on the research project on post-translational analysis of the TDP-43 protein in neuroblastoma cells and in fibroblasts of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

RACHELE MARINO

Rachele Marino received her Master’s degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology from “La Sapienza” University of Rome and completed her internship at the Department of Molecular Medicine, where she studied the role of “paused promoters” in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), demonstrating that aberrant DNA hypermethylation is associated with a significant reduction of H3K4 chromatin marker in an AML cellular model.
She then completed a PhD in Human Biology and Medical Genetics from “La Sapienza,” where she studied the role and function of Argonauta2 during senescence and identified the nuclear key interactors of this protein.
Dr. Marino continued her career in neuroscience at the Ebri-Rita Levi Montalcini Foundation in Rome, where she investigated the role of SUMOylation in neurodegenerative diseases that include Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. She explored the regulatory mechanism of TAU aggregation and its post-transcriptional control, specifically SUMOylation, in primary neurons and neuroblastoma cell lines.
Since August 2023, Rachele Marino, as a researcher at the Need Institute, has received a scholarship that allows her to continue her research focusing on the mechanism of the re-localization and aggregation of the TDP-43 protein at the cytoplasmic level, which is a hallmark of ALS pathology.
Particularly, she will evaluate how TDP43 SUMOylation impacts the citotoxicity in primary neurons and fibroblasts derived from ALS patients.
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