Eleonora Piscitelli

Graduated cum laude in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Padua, I earned a PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Milan in 2010. My doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on characterizing normal and tumor derived mammary gland stem like cells through integrated biological, molecular, and bioinformatics approaches. I developed protocols for the isolation, culture, and analysis of organoids derived from multiple tissues—including mammary gland and synovial membrane—applied to drug testing assays and in vitro angiogenesis studies. I later implemented advanced methodologies such as single cell transcriptomics and epigenetic profiling (ATAC seq) to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying diseases such as breast cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. Since 2023, supported by an ITB Seed Grant, I have been leading a project dedicated to the development of brain organoids from human iPSCs. This work integrates transcriptomics, metabolomics, immunohistochemistry, and label free Raman imaging, and has established new collaborations for the study of neurodevelopmental genetic disorders. I’m currently collaborating with Prof Fornasari (UniMI-Biometra) and Drs Benfante (IN-CNR) to model the pathophysiology of Central Congenital Hypoventilation Syndrome (CCHS) generating brainstem organoids from patients’ iPSCs, investigating the disease mechanisms in a more physiological setting.