Role
Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and Biotechnology and Coordinator of the Center of Excellence for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Milan
Bio
After graduating in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan in 1973, she pursued her scientific interests with a fellowship at the Institute of Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy, directed by Professor Rodolfo Paoletti. A winner of the Salk Institute - University of Texas Award, she continued her training initially at the Department of Pharmacology and Neurobiology at the University of Texas at Houston , USA, and then at the Department of Cell Biology at Baylor College of Medicine under the guidance of Professor Bert O'Malley . Returning to Italy in 1982 as a researcher, she founded and directed a model center for university-industry collaboration, the result of an initiative by the University of Milan and the pharmaceutical company Hoffman - LaRoche : the Milano Molecular Pharmacology Lab (MPL) . In the late 1980s, as an associate professor, she continued her research at the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at the University of Milan. Since 2002, he has directed the Center of Excellence for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Milan, an experimental center funded by a grant from the Ministry of University and Research, where he directly supervises a research group of 20 researchers and recent graduates. From 2006 to 2014, he founded and chaired TOP srl, a spin-off of the University of Milan. As an expert in Pharmacological Biotechnology, she holds various ministerial positions: she is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Italian Prime Minister in the sector of Biotechnology, Biosafety and Life Sciences, of the Scientific Committee of the “ Innovative Medicine Initiative ” of the European Union, of the European ESFRI Working Group for Health and Food , of the Council of the European Society for Molecular Imaging (ESMI) and is a MIUR delegate for the European Pilot Initiative on Joint Programming on Neurodegenerative Diseases, of which she has been Vice-President since 2010. She has currently been appointed by the American Society of Endocrinology as a member of the Endocrine Society EU Task Force for Endocrine Disrupters and collaborates with the Innovative Medicine Initiative 2 as a member of the SSG Panel on Neurodegeneration.