Postdoc
Dr Alessandra Lodrini
RESEARCH
My current research project is part of the Cardiovascular Moonshot of the Regenerative Medicine Crossing Borders (RegMedXB) foundation. This project aims to devise novel personalized cardiac regenerative therapies. These therapies will involve gene therapy and other cardioprotective strategies that can stimulate the heart’s own regenerative capacity and restore heart function. The treatments will be applied outside of the body by putting the heart in a bioreactor while keeping the patient on life support. After restoring the heart, it will be re-implanted. The advantage of this method is that we can treat the heart while leaving all other tissues in the body as they are while bypassing the potential immune rejection that can derive from homograft transplantation.
CURRICULUM VITAE
I obtained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy. During my studies, I developed an interest in cardiac electrophysiology thanks to my internship at Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences. After my MSc, I moved to Switzerland to obtain a PhD in Cardiac Biology. My PhD project was a joint collaboration between Cardiocentro Ticino and the University of Milano-Bicocca and it focused on developing an in vitro model of cardiac aging using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Currently, I’m working as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Marie-José Goumans and my research is focused on cardiomyocytes as a target for endogenous repair of the heart.
