Ricerc@Sapienza

My research activities have been mainly conducted in the field of natural innate immunity and tumor immunology, with a specific interest in NK cell phenotype, activation and function. In particular, the main interest of my research activity was to study the interplay between NK cells and tumor cells to dissect the molecular pathways that regulate the expression of NK cell activating ligands on tumor cells (i.e. multiple myeloma, renal cell carcinoma), mainly in response to several chemotherapeutic agents. These studies highlighted the critical contribution of the DNA-damage response and senescence pathways in up-regulating their expression on different types of cancer cells. Furthermore, the analysis of the senescent secretome has elucidated some of the mechanisms capable of improving NK cell-tumor immune surveillance.

In the more recent past my interest is being addressed in studying the innate immune surveillance against high-risk human papillomavirus infection through the characterization of novel immunotherapeutic approaches to restore the intrinsic innate immune response, including IFN production (PRIN 2017, Prot. 20178ALPCM). In these studies, I propose to fill the gap between in vitro and in vivo experimentation by employing a bio-printed 3D platform to recapitulate the HPV-infected stratified epithelium.