Phd in CELL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

email: fiorentina.ascenzioni@uniroma1.it
phone: 49917577
building: via dei Sardi 70
room: A10-A11

Fiorentina Ascenzioni
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8725-9207
Scopus Author ID: 6601949701

Education
1983 Master degree in Biology; University of Rome La Sapienza (110/100 e lode
1986 PhD in Natural Science, University Eberhard Karls di Tübingen, Germany (magna cum laude).
Current position
2024 - Full Professor in General Microbiology (SSD BIO19), Department of Biology and Biotechnology C. Darwin, Sapienza University of Rome.
Previous permanent position
2023-2001 Associate Professor in General Microbiology (SSD BIO19), Department of Biology and Biotechnology C. Darwin, Sapienza University of Rome. She acquired the qualification to Full Professor (SC 05/I2, SSD BIO/19) on 04/06/2017.
1992-1996 Technicians, VII level, Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology, Laboratory of Microbiology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
1996-2001 Researcher in General Microbiology, Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

Teaching: General Microbiology (L3, BAAI); Molecular Microbial Genetics (LM, BTC); Microbial Vectors for Cell and Gene Therapy (LM, BTC).
President of LM BTC, AA 2022-25 and 2019-2022.
PhD teacher, PhD Cellular and Developmental Biology (member of the PhD board since 2001); tutor PhD students.

Editorial Activity Referee for scientific Journal (Frontiers in Microbiology, Nucleic Acids Research, Chromosome Research, Gene Therapy, Human Gene Therapy, J Gene Medicine, FEBS).
Evaluation of research grant proposal for Wellcome Trust (UK), ANR (France) and FWO (Belgium). Evaluator for “Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca”, VQR 2015-19.
Scientific Society Membership: national scientific society SIMGBM, SIBBM and SIFC; international, ECFS.
Prizes: Best poster at European cystic fibrosis conference, Brest (Fr) 2009; Annalisa Marzotto proze, SIFC congress 2009.

Patents: 1) Inibitori della antibiotico-resistenza mediata da ArnT; autori, F. Imperi, F. Ascenzioni, M. Mori, F. Ghirga, D. Quaglio, S. Corradi, A. Lo Sciuto, B. Botta, A. Calcaterra, N 102019000012888, released 13/07/2021. Internationational extention, WO2021/014422, concluded with regionalization / nationalization in EU (20753432.2, date 04/02/2022) and USA (17/629,654 date 24/01/2022; 2) Ascenzioni, F., Donini, D., e Gilson, E. Processo di sintesi di DNA telomerico di vertebrato, prodotti così ottenuti e relativi impieghi. N RM2000A0004 Italian patent.

Scientific interests
The research projects coordinated by Dr. Ascenzioni are the results of her scientific formation in the following area: eukaryotic and prokaryotic artificial chromosomes; molecular and cellular biology of Cystic Fibrosis (CF); microbiology in CF lung disease.
Main research topics:
Host-pathogen interactions in cystic fibrosis. The main goal is to highlight the molecular mechanisms underlying the microbial killing by macrophages and to assess their activity in CF macrophages.
Analysis of the pathogenicity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacea strains of clinical and environmental origins. More recently we focused on P. aeruginosa isolates recovered from CF patients in the last stages of the lung disease to identify the molecular pathways responsible for bacterial virulence in CF.
New therapeutics for CF lung infection disease: development of drugs targeting the colistin resistance genes; identification of targets to improve the activity of CF immune cells, in particular macrophages. Targets include ion channels whose activity appear altered in CF such as the ENaC channel; miRNA dysregulation in CF macrophages.
Development of artificial chromosomes and episomal vectors for delivery of therapeutic genes. Our studies take into consideration Cystic Fibrosis as a model disease.