Advisory Board

 Marco Spinsanti is a Scientist at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Siena. He obtained his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Bologna in 2016. During his PhD, he studied the regulation of the vaccine antigen Factor H binding protein in Neisseria meningitidis. After his PhD, he joined GSK where his research focuses on vaccine candidate identification and molecular genetics of pathogenic bacteria.

Luigi Scietti is a biochemist and structural biologist interested in medically relevant molecular studies. During his M.Sc. internship at the University of Bologna he got trained in recombinant protein production and biochemistry of histone modifier enzymes. He completed his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Bologna while working at Novartis Vaccines (now GSK - Siena), elucidating molecular mechanisms underlying S. aureus and N. meningitidis immune evasion. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Armenise-Harvard lab of structural biology at the University of Pavia, he set the grounds for a new research line on collagen-modifying enzymes. Since 2021, Dr. Scietti is the coordinator of the Biochemistry and Structural Biology Unit at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO), providing collaborative support to characterize macromolecular complexes involved in cancer through the use of integrative structural biology approaches.

Graduated in Biology and Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology, she obtained her PhD at the University of Bologna. After an experience abroad as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY (USA), she moved back to Italy at the AUSL-IRCCS of Reggio Emilia where since 2015 she directs the Translational Research Laboratory, a complex multidisciplinary structure that relies on a staff of 25 researchers and combines skills in the field of molecular biology, functional genomics, biostatistics and bioinformatics, through the use of the most innovative approaches for the study of the organization of the genome and its function in cancer.

The main interest of her research activities is the knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in oncological pathologies starting from the information contained in the genome. In particular, her research seeks to understand how alterations in the sequence, function and organization of the genome contribute to oncogenesis, in particular to the processes of tumor progression and metastatic spread.