BIOSKETCH
Elisa Di Pasquale graduated cum Laude on Medical Biotechnologies in 2002 at the University of Milan, where she also obtained a PhD in Biotechnologies applied to Medical Sciences in 2005. After a post-doctoral training at the Rockefeller University in New York in the Laboratory of Molecular Vertebrate Embryology, she moved back to Italy and joined Prof. G. Condorelli laboratory at IRCCS Multimedica Institute in Milan. In 2011, she received a tenured position at the level of Assistant Professor at the National Research Council of Italy Unit of the Institute of Genetic and Biomedical Research based in Milan. From 2012, she is also responsible of Stem Cell laboratory of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at ICH.
She gained experience in stem cell biology and investigation of the mechanisms of human genetic diseases. Within the last 7 years, her research activity was mainly centred on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) technology for modelling both acquired and inherited cardiac diseases and for studying human heart development in vitro. She developed iPSC-based models of inherited arrhythmias (i.e. Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia, long QT and Brugada syndromes) and primary cardiomyopathies that served as platforms to investigate the cellular and molecular events leading to the diseases and to test the efficacy of new therapeutic treatments. In the last few years she dedicated her efforts to the understanding of the role of LMNA mutations in the onset and progression of dilated cardiomyopathy.
A second research line relates to the mechanisms of cardiac differentiation and exploitation of bio-engineering approaches for development of cardiac organoids and new therapeutic tools.
She received competitive grants from national and international agencies.