I'm currently working on gene and microRNA profiling in different sets of human immune system cells as well as HCV.related liver diseases, with a special emphasis on data analysis. In the group of Integrative Biology at INGM we're using TaqMan Low density arrays for quantitative assessment of microRNA expression and the Illumina platform for genome wide gene expression studies. We develop custom workflows to integrate experimental and in silico data for microRNA target recognition, with the ultimate goal of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers identification.
I've been recently working on the "MaRE" project as founder and developer. MaRE is a web application aided social science effort aimed at obtaining quantitative data on (italians) scientists and science professionals abroad. A web interface and client side visual tools will be implemented to render the geographic and time related patterns of fluxes of knowledge around the globe.
Others side activities for marketing of MaRE (as the documentary on life of italian scientists around the US) and collaborations with ISSNAF, the recently established Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation, keep me busy.
I've been working on transcriptional regulation of glucose-repressed genes in Ted Young's lab at the department of Biochemistry of the University of Washington in Seattle using the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Young's lab has decades-long expertise in studying genes and proteins of the pathways regulating glucose repression in yeast. My attention is focused on the role of the transcriptional activator encoded by the ADR1 gene. It is a zinc-finger DNA binding protein and it activates transcription of a number of glucose-repressed genes upon depletion/withdrawal of glucose as a carbon source in the medium. I'm investigating its binding properties in a variety of physiological and genetic conditions.
(The following text refer to my last period of work in Milano, as ended in October 2005, and is taken from my web site's older version)
[...] I've been working at the department of Biotechnology and Biosciences at the University of Milano-Bicocca on budding yeast cell cycle since year 2000. We focused our attention on key regulatory molecules of G1/S transition: a cyclin dependent kinase (Cdk1 or Cdc28), its activatory subunits collectively called "cyclins" (Cln3, Cln1 and Cln2, Clb5 and Clb6) and specific inhibitors (Far1 and Sic1). All these proteins are characteristically expressed during the first phases of the cycle and their relative abundance and interactions regulate progression of the cell through the committing point called "Start", the moment in which the cell begins to replicate its DNA (and the yeast cell protrudes its "bud" that later, detaching, will become a daughter yeast cell).
We were interested in coordination between cell cycle and cell growth. How cell cycle mechanisms are influenced by different kind of nutrients (i.e. carbon sources)?
We studied in particular the role of Sic1 inhibitor before and during passage through Start, focusing on regulation of this protein by nuclear and cytoplasmic localization, also as a function of carbon source.
In the recent past we demonstrated a role in the mitotic cell cycle for the Cdk inhibitor Far1 and set the entire G1 to S progression events into a framework we refer to as the "two thresholds" mechanism. I also worked on relationships between Sic1 and Casein Kinase 2, a pleiotropic and conserved ser-thr kinase, whose role in cell cycle is still not completely clear.
We had a cell biology approach: we used standard molecular biology and biochemistry techniques, 2D protein electrophoresis, flow citometry and some fluorescent microscopy.