I am a bioinformatics researcher with a strong background in Biotechnology (MS) and in Molecular and Translational Medicine (PhD). My research focuses on studying microbial physiology and its effects on the host-microbiota dynamics, across health and disease statuses, over time, and in the context of nutritional interventions. Since 2021, I have been working in microbiome research, with extensive experience in next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis, from raw data processing to biological results interpretation. I am proficient in R and routinely develop custom scripts and pipelines using tools such as QIIME, dada2, phyloseq, and PICRUSt2. During a research period with Dr. Joao Xavier, at the MSKCC (NY, USA), I applied machine learning techniques to large human microbiome datasets to support the development of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) strategies as a cancer treatment. I am also trained for the use of an in vitro approach (SHIME platform) for assessing microbial composition and metabolic activity in mucosal and luminal gastrointestinal sections.
Research Activities
Study of the microbiome in the onset of complex diseases
Study of the microbiota-host-exposome interactions to elucidate how microbial dynamics and metabolite profiles influence host physiology and disease mechanisms
Study of animal- and food-associated microbiome for safety, biodiversity conservation and improvement of animal performances
Development, application and optimization of automated pipelines for the analysis of genomics, epigenomics and transcriptomics data for large-scale studies.
Management and harmonization of biomedical data through organization, curation, and integration of heterogeneous health and research datasets into standardized formats.
