Curriculum Vitae

Education

02/2014 PhD in Physics, Astrophysics and Applied Physics from University of Milano (IT)

PhD thesis title:
Exploring the role of Liquid Crystal ordering of DNA oligomers in the prebiotic synthesis of nucleic acids
Supervisor: Prof. Tommaso Bellini

10/2010 M.S. in Physics from University of Milano (IT)

04/2008 B.S. in Physics from University of Milano (IT)

Positions

From 03/09/2018: Junior Research Chair at Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (IPGG) – ESPCI Paris (F)

Since 01/11/2015 to 31/10/2018: Assistant Professor of Applied Physics (RTD/A – FIS/07), San Raffaele University, Rome, Italy and Research Collaborator at University of Milan (I).

From 01/01/2017 to 30/09/2017: Principal Investigator of an ELSI Origin Network (EON) Seed Grant funded project, coordinating three international research teams in Italy and USA

06/2017 (2 months): Visiting Scientist at the Soft Materials Research Center – University of Colorado at Boulder (CO, USA)

03/2017 (1 month): Visiting Research Associate at the Earth-Life Science Institute – Tokyo Institute of Technology (JP)

2014-2015: Postdoc fellow, part of Grant PRIN Program of the Italian MIUR Ministry, at University of Milano, Department of Medical Biotechnologies and Translational Medicine (IT).

Awards and Grants

Cozzarelli prize 2019 from the National Accademy of Science of the United States of America, awarding the paper “Backbone-free Watson Crick duplex-stacked nucleic acids”, published in 2018 on PNAS, for outstanding scientific quality and originality.

01/2018 Junior Research Chair from Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes pour la Microfluidique (IPGG), Paris (F): PI position and 3 years research funding for the project “Origin of Life on a Chip”.

08/2016 ELSI Origin Network Seed Grant from Earth Life Science Institute (ELSI) Tokyo, Japan, for the research project: Lipid Assisted Polymerization and Liquid-Crystal Autocatalysis of random RNA oligomers mixtures in simulated hydrothermal fields.

06/2016 “Daniela Pucci” prize from Italian Liquid Crystal Society (SICL) for the best PhD thesis on LC for the thesis:  Exploring the role of Liquid Crystal ordering of DNA oligomers in the prebiotic synthesis of nucleic acids.

07/2014 International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) travel grant for 17th International Conference on the Origin of Life, ORIGINS 2014, Nara, Japan

Collaborations

  • Prof. Tommaso Bellini
    Biotechnology and Translational Medicine Dept. Università degli Studi di Milano (IT)
  • Prof. Noel A. Clark
    Soft Materials Research Center of University of Colorado at Boulder (USA)
  • Prof. Rosanna Asselta
    Humanitas University Milan (IT)
  • Prof. Liana Lucchetti
    SIMAU Dept. Università Politecnica delle Marche (IT)
  • Dr. Philippe Nghe
    ESPCI Paris (FR)
  • Dr. Tony Jia
    Earth Life Science Institute at Tokyo Institute of Technology (JP)
  • Dr. Nicolas Martin
    Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, University of Bordeaux (FR)