The focus of our research is Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder affecting more than 4 million people worldwide. Our aim is to increase the knowledge on Parkinson’s disease neuropathology, in order to find targetable molecules for neuroprotective strategies.

Although neuropathology of Parkinson’s disease is extremely complex and involves several mechanisms, we know that neuroinflammation plays a prominent role in the spreading of pathology within the CNS. We are interested in investigating the role of cells that mediate the neuroinflammatory response (i.e. microglia) on the neurodegenerative process underpinning Parkinson’s disease. While we know that microglia assume a detrimental effector function in Parkinson’s disease, our main goal is to understand whether we can harness microglia function for good. We use a pharmacological approach associated with multiple techniques (behavioral tests, immunohistochemistry, Bright-field and fluorescent microscopy) in preclinical murine models of Parkinson’s disease, to investigate the symptomatic and cellular effect of manipulating the central immune system. Our final goal is to identify a pharmacologically targetable molecule within microglia which may leads to a switch of these cells effector function toward beneficial.
To see my CV please go to the attached pdf document.