Francesca De Chirico

Francesca De Chirico completed a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology at the University of Perugia, followed by a Master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology at the University of Bologna. During her academic journey, she broadened her horizons through Erasmus+ Unipharma Graduates 2018/2019 at Descartes University in Paris, where she first encountered the fascinating field of neuroscience in the lab of prof. Frederic Charbonnier, under the supervision of prof. Laure Weill.

She obtained a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Bologna, conducting research at FaBiT (Dipartimento di Farmacia e BioTecnologie) under the supervision of prof. Barbara Monti, focusing primarily on the role of extracellular vesicles secreted by microglia in neuroinflammation. As a Visiting PhD student, she was awarded funding through the “Mobilità per la ricerca programma MARCO POLO 2021” to collaborate with the University of Lisbon, where she worked on the modulation of microglia inflammatory miRNAs for neuroprotection in ALS.

In 2023, she joined the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), located at IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, under the leadership of Prof. Fabio Benfenati as a PostDoc, where she was expanding her research on neuroinflammation, investigating the physiopathology of the blood-brain barrier and the potentiality of M13 bacteriophages as novel tools for targeted brain delivery.

Her work at IIT will continue until 2025, after which she planned to continue her research at the Fondazione Pisana per la Scienza Onlus.