Rossella Avagliano Trezza obtained her PhD in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Amsterdam in January 2019. During her doctoral years she studied the ubiquitin E3 ligase UBE3A, whose defective regulation and expression lead to Angelman Syndrome development. Following her PhD, she continued exploring the sub-cellular role of UBE3A at the Neuroscience department of the ERASMUS-MC in Rotterdam as a post-doctoral researcher. Here she uncovered the unique connection between UBE3A cellular localization and Angelman Syndrome development. In 2020 she joined the department of Translational Genomics at Maastricht University where she worked on developing a cell-based therapy for LAMA 2 muscular dystrophy, a rare neuromuscular disorder. After a brief experience outside academia at a biomaterial startup, Rossella joined Vanessa La Pointe’s team to support the clinical advancement of an organoid-based cell therapy for conjunctival disease. Here she is contributing to the initiation of a first-in-human clinical trial to establish proof-of-concept for this novel therapy.