Volpi, Emanuela - University of Westminster - Department of Biomedical Sciences

个人简介

I graduated in Biological Sciences (First Class Honours Summa cum Laude) at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". After post-graduate training and research in the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology of the same University, I was awarded a Doctorate in Evolutionary Biology. I then worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Cancer Research UK in London and was subsequently appointed as Staff Scientist by the National Research Council in Italy. Before joining the University of Westminster in 2013 I held an Associate Lectureship within the Biosciences at Brunel University. Prior to that, I was for eleven years Head of the Molecular Cytogenetics and Microscopy Core of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford where I retain a Visiting Fellowship in Molecular Cytogenetics at the Nuffield Department of Medicine. My research expertise is in genetics and cell biology, with specific focus on genome organisation, chromosomal fragility and instability, gene mapping, nuclear architecture, cancer cytogenetics and molecular cytogenetics applied to genomic medicine and medical genetics. I am a member of the British Society for Genetic Medicine (Association of Clinical Genetic Science), the European Cytogeneticists Association, the Genetics Society and the Italian Medical Society of Great Britain.

研究领域

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Chromosomes, nuclear architecture and genome organisation in health and disease Chromosomal analysis at different stages of the cell cycle and at different resolution levels can provide important clues on a specific genome and its functioning, often supplying crucial information on the pathogenesis of medical conditions. Indeed, chromosomal and nuclear abnormalities have long been invaluable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. My research interests lie with the functional organisation of chromosomes in the cell nucleus and the epigenetic impact of nuclear architecture, with the purpose of understanding how disruption of the large-scale chromatin organisation in interphase by interfering with the regulation of gene expression relates to human disease. While I was working as a Post-Doc in Prof. Denise Sheer's research laboratory at Cancer Research UK, we were the first to demonstrate a link between microscopically visible changes in interphase chromosome structure and specific changes in gene expression ("Large-scale chromatin organization of the MHC on human chromosome 6 and its response to interferon in interphase nuclei", Volpi et al., 2000, J Cell Sci 113:1565-1576). Ever since our ground-breaking discoveries, giant chromatin loops displacing gene clusters from the main chromosome territory - like the ones we described for the MHC - have become a universally acknowledged feature of nuclear chromatin organisation functional dynamics. My current research endeavours focus on the combined application of cytogenomics and modern microscopy techniques for the assessment and monitoring of 'genome health' from a chromosomal and nuclear architecture perspective, with the main aims of (1) understanding the requirements for genome health maintenance in vitro and in vivo, and (2) identifying pre-pathological biomarkers with translational potential.