Dr. Silvia Bolognin is a pharmaceutical chemist with a PhD in tissue and grafting engineering from the University of Padova, Italy obtained under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Zatta. Here, she focused on the role of metal ions as factors promoting the pathological aggregation of the beta-amyloid peptide in the context of Alzheimer’s Disease. She then joined the lab of Prof. Khalid Iqbal at the Institute for Basic Research, in New York, USA where she started evaluating the effect of trophic compounds in various animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, Down Syndrome, and aging. This work highlighted the beneficial effects of boosting neurogenesis, dendritic and synaptic density to restore cognitive impairment.
She then joined the University of Luxembourg in the lab of Prof. Jens Schwamborn, where she started employing stem cell-derived 3D models to study neurodegenerative mechanisms associated with Parkinson’s disease. Here, she co-funded OrganoTherapeutics, a spin-off company employing human-specific midbrain organoids for the discovery and development of effective drug candidates targeting Parkinson’s disease. She developed her own line of investigation which several agencies in Italy and Luxembourg funded and she is co-inventor of several patents in the field of cell and tissue engineering.
In 2023, she joined the MERLN Institute to investigate how we can apply regenerative approaches in the context of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
