Universitą degli studi di Pavia

My research activity principally regards the study of glioma tumor, in particular how the autophagy process might be involved in tumor generation, progression and treatment efficacy. Autophagy is a so-called ‘self-eating’ system responsible for degrading long-lived proteins and cytoplasmic organelles, whose products are recycled to generate macromolecules and ATP so as to maintain cellular homeostasis. This ability makes autophagy a good candidate for a survival mechanism in response to several stresses, such as damaged mitochondria, protein aggregation, pathogens, and nutrient starvation. However, several recent studies suggest that autophagy also functions as a pro-death mechanism at the cellular level.
During the past years, interest of research was focused on Prion protein, found to be responsible of a cito-protective role (silencing PRNP gene, glioma cells viability was affected through autophagy-mediated cell death).
More recently, the research regards the possible correlation between autophagy and chemo/radio- therapies effectiveness, aiming the characterization of clinical individual protocols in which autophagy modulation could play a crucial role for glioma treatment.