Our research interests focus on the study of the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms dysregulated in metabolic disorders such as Insulin Resistance (IR) and Type II Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Our team relies on the use of mRNA-mediated non-integrative reprogramming technique to derive induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from fibroblasts obtained from large cohorts of patients and healthy donors. iPSCs can be differentiated into virtually all cell types of the human body and therefore constitute an unprecedented cellular platform to model disease onset and progression. Additionally, we use human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to understand the epigenetic mechanisms driving early tissue differentiation and terminal specification, with a particular focus on endoderm-derived lineages.

We combine reprogramming, next generation sequencing (NGS), genome editing as well as 2D/3D cellular biology techniques to identify the transcriptional and epigenetic signatures prognostic of metabolic diseases and to develop in vitro screening assays aimed to isolate chemical compounds able to revert these pathological signatures.​

For more details, pelase refer to our laboratory’s main webs site:  Main Website