Post-doc
Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara 44121, Italy
Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Maria Francesca Testa, PhD, is post-doctoral research at Hemostasis' molecular biology Lab. She has Bachelor degree in Biotechnology, MSc in Biomolecular and evolution sciences and PhD in biomedical sciences and biotechnology. Her research focused on nonsense mutations that cause truncated proteins with decreased stability and loss-of-function features leading to Hemophilia A or B. She deepened the molecular mechanism of translational ribosome readthrough, based on the recoding of a premature termination codon, with particular attention to the evaluation of the association of nonsense mutations with inhibitors, which is one of the most concerns of Hemophilia A. During last years she reserved to different engineered molecular approaches to correct nonsense mutations, such as DNA base and prime editing and suppressor tRNAs. Other research lines involved protein engineering to extend half-life and improve ligand binding. She has been involved in a European project to develop a new non-viral gene delivery approach, exploiting molecules able to increase the cytosolic delivery of therapeutic genes, thus to further increase the achievement of this goal, she spent three months at SAPREME dutch company. She is spending her post-doctoral research on different correction approaches to correct HA-HB nonsense variants as well as new transfection methods toward non-viral gene delivery.
Sunday, June 23, 2024
10:15 – 10:30 ICT