The Non-coding RNA Journal Webinar Series | Screening for miRNA With Essentiality in Cancer

Dr. Laura Poliseno

Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC), National Research Council (CNR), Oncogenomics Unit, Core Research Laboratory (CRL), Istituto per lo Studio, la Prevenzione e la Rete Oncologica (ISPRO), Pisa, Italy;
Dr. Poliseno graduated in Biological Sciences in 2000 and got her PhD in Molecular Biotechnology in 2004, both at University of Pisa, Italy. In 2006, she moved to the US, where she became a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, first at MSKCC in New York and then at BIDMC-HMS in Boston. In 2009, she started a second post-doc in the lab of Prof. Iman Osman at NYU. In 2012, she was appointed as Principal Investigator of the Oncogenomics Unit of ITT (now ISPRO) and in 2016 she became Staff Scientist at the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council in Pisa, Italy, where her lab is located. Throughout her scientific career, her research interests have mostly revolved around non-coding RNAs (microRNAs, pseudogenes, ceRNAs) in cancer. Currently, the activities of the Poliseno lab are focused on the study of the coding and non-coding regulatory networks that revolve around BRAFV600E isoforms in melanoma. To this end, they use a wide range of techniques, both in vitro (yeast, melanoma cell lines) and in vivo (melanoma modeling in zebrafish and in the mouse). They are also developing strategies for the selective delivery of drug combinations inside cancer cells, exploiting the attenuated bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.