DISPONIBILITà DI TESI DI LAUREA

Gli ambienti sotterranei sono da sempre considerati degli ottimi laboratori naturali per comprendere

i meccanismi che consentono l'adattamento ad  am ...

Gli ambienti sotterranei sono da sempre considerati degli ottimi laboratori naturali per comprendere

i meccanismi che consentono l'adattamento ad  ambienti differenti.  Ancora di maggiore interesse stanno utlimamente diventando gli ambienti che sono al confine, all'interfaccia tra mondo sotterraneo e mondo superficiale. Questo progetto intende caratterizzare da un punto di vista comportamentale, ecologico, morfologico e genetico gli adattamenti  in organismi sotterranei che, per periodi più o meno lunghi, sfruttano gli habitat di interfaccia.  Protei, planarie e crostacei isopodi del genere Monolistra, saranno i soggetti delle diverse indagini.

Videoconferenza sulle attività il giorno 16  aprile  alle 16

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/ ...

Videoconferenza sulle attività il giorno 16  aprile  alle 16

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a175f6237241b4bf593f877a7ae4cf914%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=47282341-9a67-4333-9db0-9dbf735ab45d&tenantId=13b55eef-7018-4674-a3d7-cc0db06d545c

Lung cancer is often metastatic and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Thus, there is an urgency for new and more accurate biomarkers to im ...

Lung cancer is often metastatic and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Thus, there is an urgency for new and more accurate biomarkers to improve early diagnosis and improve patient stratification. Immune evasion is increasingly recognized as a driver of cancer progression and poor survival. In this regard, the role of the microbiome is emerging as a critical factor, calling for a systematic characterization of the mechanisms underlying commensals-host immune response in cancer. We hypothesize that combined analysis of oral and lung microbiome in association with patterns of inflammatory activation may reveal new mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis while representing an innovative approach to identify early stage lung cancer patients. 
The student will be involved in: - characterizing patient-derived tissue and microbiome samples; 
- phenotyping of tumor immune infiltrates;  
- model microbiome-tumor-immune system interactions on our novel lung-on-chip model.
During the training period, the student will become familiar with:
- microbiome processing and sequencing using next-generation sequencing (NGS);
- multichromatic flow cytometry;
- bead-based multiplexed ELISA (Luminex);
- 3D microfluidic cell culturing;
- basic in vitro immune assays.

The group of Professor Testa is looking for a highly motivated and dedicated student interested in thymoma disease modeling. Thymoma, despite its rari ...

The group of Professor Testa is looking for a highly motivated and dedicated student interested in thymoma disease modeling. Thymoma, despite its rarity, is the most frequent cancer of the mediastinum. Recently, a specific mutation of GTF2I, namely L383H/L424H, has been found as highly recurrent in this specific disease. The student will during his training learn how to (i) cultivate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) (ii) introduce the above mentioned mutation in iPSCs through CRISPR editing (iii) differentiate iPSCs in thymic epithelial progenitors (TEPs) (iv) perform transcriptomic analysis on RNA-Seq conducted on TEPs. The student will have 3 tutors, each one dedicated to the teaching of a specific task. To apply for this position in Professor Testa’s laboratory, please send an email to Giuseppe.testa@ieo.it.

Metastatic dissemination is the leading cause of breast cancer death in women worldwide. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process through ...

Metastatic dissemination is the leading cause of breast cancer death in women worldwide. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process through which epithelial cells acquire mesenchymal-like features, is a major mechanism regulating invasiveness and metastatic dissemination of breast cancer cells. Importantly, endocytosis is though to play a critical role in this process: through the remodeling of endocytic and trafficking programs, cells can convert between epithelial and mesenchymal states in a more dynamic and reversible way when compared to full transcriptional regulation, since changes mainly involve the partition of molecules into different endocytic compartments. This provides cells with the highest level of plasticity, i.e., the ability to switch between invasive/mesenchymal and proliferative/epithelial modes, favouring their metastatic dissemination and colonization of distant sites.
On this line, we have recently uncovered an endocytic-based mechanism able to confer an EMT phenotype and an invasive and metastatic behavior to breast epithelial cells. This mechanism relies on the endocytic protein Epsin3, which is frequently overexpressed in breast cancer and its overexpression correlates with poor prognosis and metastatic outcome. Epsin3 overexpression in non-tumorigenic breast cells accelerates E-cadherin endocytosis, destabilizing cell-to-cell junctions and inducing EMT.
We now aim to characterize the molecular mechanism at the basis of this process, which can be eventually targeted for therapeutic intervention. To this aim, we will employ a series of assays that have been developed in the lab and that will be instrumental for the project:
1. Endocytic assays. We have available genetic and pharmacological tools to interfere with the major endocytic routes and we optimized quantitative E-cadherin internalization and trafficking assays.
2. EMT signature. We have validated a number of EMT markers and EMT transcription factors t