As an undergraduate student in Computer Science at University of Catania, I was introduced to bioinformatics, biostatistics and molecular biology by Dr. Alfredo Ferro and Dr. Alfredo Pulvirenti who supervised my bachelor and master thesis.These works were my really first research experiences and I was very enthusiastic by the possibility to apply algorithms and computational methods to help solving biological problems. Therefore I decided to focus my future research in bioinformatics. As a doctoral student I focused my research on using mathematical models and computer simulations to form, extract and analyze RNA data, search new microRNA (miRNA) gene sequences and predict their targets. Development of more accurate models for miRNA function in regard to biological environment and diseases is still a challenge and makes this fascinating and challenging field for bioinformaticians. In 2010, I joined the Dr. Carlo M. Croce Lab. at The Ohio State University, USA. As member of this research team, I investigated the different roles of miRNA in human cancer and I acquired new skills on the analysis of data generated by several different high throughput platforms, widely used for RNA profiling. I was also able to learn some basic practical skills for lab research and I had the possibility to follow the pipeline of the samples processing “from the bench to the data analysis”; Understanding the wet lab techniques was essential to interfacing with collaborators and contributing to experimental design. Since March 2013, I have been working at IOR investigating the molecular bases of lymphomas through next generation sequencing technology (Illumina).

Cell Biology, Cell Culture, Oncology, Lifesciences, Genetics, Computational Biology, DNA, Statistics, Western Blotting, RNA isolation, Biotechnology, Microscopy, Protein Purification Flow Cytometry, R, qPCR, Microbiology, DNA sequencing, Cancer, Biostatistics, Experimental Design,Data Analysis