Paola Scaffidi
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| Location | Building 13 Floor 3rd Via Adamello 16, Milano |
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Throughout her career, Paola Scaffidi has studied the link between chromatin, gene expression regulation and disease in various contexts, including inflammation, premature and physiological aging, stem cell dysfunction and cancer. She obtained her PhD from the Open University of London, working at San Raffaele Institute in Milan, Italy. Her PhD work in Marco Bianchi’s group led to the identification of the chromatin protein HMGB1 as a major danger signal released by damaged cells, which triggers inflammatory responses. She then moved to the US National Cancer Institute to work in Tom Misteli's laboratory. Her postdoctoral studies focused on the premature ageing disease Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome and aimed at elucidating how nuclear architecture affects genome function and how it contributes to the ageing process. As a staff scientist, she initiated a new area of investigation focused on understanding how cellular reprogramming affects the initiation and maintenance of solid tumours.
In 2014 she established her own lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, where her group began to investigate how epigenetic dysregulation promotes cancer initiation and evolution. In 2023 she joined the Department of Experimental Oncology at IEO in Milan as a Tenured Group Leader. She was elected EMBO member in 2024.