on January 17, 2007
Silvia completed her Masters degree at the University of Milan and went on to defend her thesis at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute with Donata Vercelli. Her work there concentrated on isotype switching to IgE in human B lymphocytes.
For the past 7 years Silvia has been working with Anjana Rao at Harvard, first on transcriptional regulation of cytokine production in Th2 lymphocytes and mast cells, and then more recently, on miRNAs.
At the IRB Silvia plans to work on T helper lymphocytes and mast cells to illuminate the role of miRNA in the integrated regulatory network that controls gene expression.
“Besides being of fundamental relevance to our understanding of cell differentiation and gene regulation, elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that control mast cells and helper T cell differentiation have substantial potential for clinical application in the treatment of asthma, allergy, autoimmunity, and chronic inflammation. Furthermore, a growing body of data indicates that both the differential expression of specific miRNAs and disruption of the miRNA synthetic pathway as a whole may contribute to oncogenesis. Ultimately, an insight into how the miRNA pathway contributes to cell differentition and proliferation may establish such pathway as an attractive and tractable therapeutic target.”
