My scientific career began in Italy, where I studied Biological Sciences at the University of Pisa (1993-1998). In my thesis work with Prof. Mario Pellegrino, I analyzed the biophysical properties of Ca2+-activated K+ channels in human erythrocytes from patients affected by a form of myotonic distrophy named Steinert disease. The goal of this work was to characterize the functional abnormalities of these channels in patients affected by the disease, in order to develop novel diagnostic tools.
In 1998 I was selected for the PhD courses in Biophysics, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Cognitive Neurosciences, at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste (Italy). I graduated in Biophysics at the end of 2001, working with Profs. John G. Nicholls and Enrico Cherubini. During my PhD I studied the development of rhythmic circuits underlying locomotor-like behaviors.
In 2002 I crossed The Channel and reached London (UK). Specifically, I reached UCL, one of the world leading institutes in the fields of neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology. At UCL, I used electrophysiology approaches to study synapses, specialized sites that allow neurons to communicate to one another. Together with Prof. Dimitri M. Kullmann, and also Dmitri A. Rusakov, Matthew C.Walker and many others in the lab, I learnt that the exchange of information among neurons at the level of the synapse is not spatially confined as it is often described in textbooks. This lack of spatial specificity, a phenomenon that is referred to as "neurotransmitter spillover", can be modified during epilepsy and is shaped by the activity of glial cells (particularly astrocytes) adjacent to synaptic contacts.
In 2005 I felt it was time to Americanize my accent, so I crossed the Atlantic and landed at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (MD), in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey S. Diamond. Here I continued to work on spillover, strengthened my quantitative and analytical skills, and learnt to use astrocytic recordings and diffusion simulations to study the role of neuronal glutamate transporters at hippocampal synapses.
In 2010 I was appointed Research Fellow, and used my expertise in diffusion analysis and two-photon microscopy to understand the structural organization of pre-synaptic terminals in the hippocampus.
In 2013 I became an Assistant Professor at SUNY Albany and got ready for some new scientific adventures!
And in 2015 I became an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics at SUNY Albany!
Oh, wait: I am an Associate Professor now! - September 2019
Learning never ends, and that is one of the reasons I love science: I could nor have found a better place for my sabbatical, in 2022 (thanks COVID) in Bernardo Sabatini's lab at Harvard Medical School...what a blast!
