Phd in IINNOVATION IN IMMUNO-MEDIATED AND HEMATOLOGICAL DISORDERS

email: giovanni.bernardini@uniroma1.it
phone: 06/49255121
building: Palazzina B Ex-IRE
room: 321

Curriculum Vitae GIOVANNI BERNARDINI
Date of birth: June, 16 1970
Position title: Associate Professor
E-mail: giovanni.bernardini@uniroma1.it
Work address: Department of Molecular Medicine, University
of Rome “La Sapienza”. V.le Regina Elena, 291 00161- Rome, Italy

Education:
1994 Graduated with honors in Biology. University of Rome “La Sapienza”.
1996 National Board for biologists.
1999 PhD in Immunological Science, University of Rome “La Sapienza”.

Positions and Employment
1995-1998 Research Fellow at the Regina Elena Cancer Institute, CRS
1998-1999 Research Fellow, Laboratory of Vascular Pathology. Istituto
Dermopatico dell' Immacolata - IRCCS Roma, Italy
2000-2001 Post-doctoral fellow Lab of Immunology and Vascular Biology
Stanford University Medical School. Director: Prof. Eugene C. Butcher.
Jan-Nov 2002 Post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Immunology, Department of
Experimental Medicine and Pathology, University of Rome “La Sapienza”.
2002-2017 Assistant Professor, at the Dept of Experimental Medicine and since 2010 at
the Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
2015-2018 Consultant, IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli (IS), Italy
2018- Associate Professor, at the Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Awards and honors
2000-2001 Winner of One-year Scholarship for research abroad of Italian Federation for
Cancer Research (FIRC)
2001 Winner of One-year Scholarship for research abroad of The Foundation
Blanceflor Boncompagni-Ludovisi of Sweden
Teaching Experience:
2003-present Teaching in Immunology in the Biotechnology Course (2CFU) at University of Rome “La Sapienza”
2004-present Lecturer in the immunology course at the Faculty of Medicine of University
of Rome “La Sapienza”.
2008-present Member of the teaching body for the evaluation of PhD students (PhD school
in Immunological, Hematological and Rheumatological Sciences 2008-2017; PhD school in innovation in immune-medited diseases and hematological disorders 2017-presen)
2018-present Professor of Immunology and Molecular Pathology at the Bioinformatics Course (6CFU) at the University of Rome “La Sapienza.
2020-present Professor of Immunology at the Medical Biotechnology master course (2CFU)

Memberships in Professional Societies
SIICA (Società Italiana di Immunologia, Immunologia Clinica e Allergologia)
Peer review activity
Blood Journal
Immunological letters
PlosOne
Cancer Research
Review Editor in Frontiers in Immunology

Oral communication in national and international Meetings and Workshops
Invited Speaker
-2° Workshop Chemokines and Chemokine receptors in the nervous system. CX3CL1/CX3CR1 axis in neural and immune cell functions. Rome, Italy. 2009
- XXX National Congress of Italian Society of Pathology. KLRG1+ NK cells include two distinct populations lined by CX3CR1 expression. Salerno, Italy. 2010
Workshop Immune cell interactions: a mechanism for immune system control. Different requirement of chemokine receptor for natural killer cell subset trafficking to the bone marrow June 8th, 2012. SOFIA, BULGARIA
“10th International Veterinary Immunology Symposium” 2013. Regulation of mouse NK cell trafficking in bone marrow by chemokine/chemokine receptor axes. Milan, Italy. 2013
Day of Immunology in Rome. Multiple myeloma impairs localization of effector NK cells in the
bone marrow. Rome, Italy. 2015

Selected oral comunication in 2019 for:
CXCR3 CONTROLS ANTI-MYELOMA EFFICACY OF NK CELLS ADOPTIVELY TRANSFERRED FOR IMMUNOTHERAPY
- 5th Conference on Translational Medicine on Pathogenesis and Therapy of Immune-mediated Diseases, May 16-18, 2019 in Milan
- European Chemokine and Cell Migration Conference 2019. Salamanca, Spain June 26-30
- II Joint meeting of German and Italian Society of Immunology. Munich, Germany 10-13 September 2019

Expert reviewer of the following agencies
MIUR: Referee PRIN 2010, 2011
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR:) referee years 2017, 2020
Internal Funds KU Leuven: Referee year 2020
Israel Science Foundation: Referee year 2020

Contribution to Science:
Giovanni Bernardini’s scientific interest, which overlaps with the proposed research, is to elucidate the factors that regulate NK cell trafficking into tissues underneath of human inflammatory and tumor pathologies using animal models and patient’s samples, and to propose novel therapeutic strategies.

Scientific activities 1995-2000: Identification and functional characterization of new chemokine receptors: Involved in cloning of the human chemokine receptor CCR8 ORF and in the identification of its human and viral ligands, In addition, he contributed to the cloning of the ORF of other GPCRs and to their genetic and functional characterization. In collaboration with the laboratories of Prof. Ziche in Firenze e of Prof. Ribatti in Bari he demonstrated that I-309, a CCR8 ligand, stimulates chemotaxis and invasion of endothelial cells, enhances HUVEC differentiation and induces angiogenesis in vivo.
Scientific activity 2000-2004: Analysis of signalling events involved in LFA-1-dependent lymphocyte migration in response to chemotactic molecules: Visiting scholar in the Laboratory directed by Prof. Eugene C. Butcher at Stanford University.
Scientific activity 2004-2009: Role of chemokines in the regulation of tumor cell invasive capacity. He was responsible of a project aimed at analyzing the role of chemokines in human glioma cell invasiveness. His results indicate that endogenous expression of CX3CL1 by glioma cells is controlled by TGF-beta1 and negatively regulates glioma cell invasion likely by promoting tumor cell aggregation.
Scientific activity 2006-present: Analysis of the mechanisms regulating NK cell migration and function in vivo in homeostasis, cancer, inflammation: He is mainly interested in the molecular mechanisms regulating mouse NK cell trafficking and differentiation in the bone marrow. Using in vivo mouse models, he previously analyzed changes in NK cell distribution following stimuli that affect chemokine receptor function. The results of his studies suggest that the combined action of chemokines selectively regulates localization of NK cell subsets in the BM and direct their maturation and migration to the periphery. He showed that the action of chemokines in BM is regulated by multiple myeloma, a hematological tumor growing in BM, to influence the BM retention capacity of NK cells and evade NK cell immune surveillance
Thanks to a collaboration with the group of P. Dimitrova (Stefan Angelov Institute of Microbiology, Sofia, Bulgaria) and P. van Lent (Radbound University Nijmegen, The Netherlands), he also characterized the role of inflammatory chemokines, in particular CXCL10, and how they interact with NK cells in the progression of osteoarthritis using mouse models.
He has ongoing projects on the immune response in colorectal and lung cancers for the analysis of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of suppression of NK cell anti-tumor function, particularly focusing on those that are produced by myeloid suppressor cells.

Funding information:

Associated investigator in FIRB “Futuro in Ricerca” 2010 (years 2010-2014)
Recipient of several project funds (years 2004, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020) from Sapienza University.
Associated investigator in PRIN 2017 (years 2019-2023) and 2022 (years 2024-2025)
Recipient of project funds from Institute Pasteur Italia Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti (years 2018-2020).
Participant in several projects funded by Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) and by Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR).

Published research peer-reviewed articles: 57
Book chapter: 2

H index: 27; n. citations 2900; source: Scopus
H index: 32; n. citations 3200; source: Google Scholar


Relevant publications:
Pubblicazioni rilevanti:
1. Sciumè G, De Angelis G, Benigni G, Morrone S, Santoni A, Bernardini G. CX3CR1 expression defines two KLRG1+ mouse NK cell subsets with distinct functional properties and positioning in the Bone Marrow. Blood. 2011; 117:4467-75
2. Garofalo S, D’Alessandro G, Chece G, Frederic Brau, Maggi L, Rosa A, Porzia A, Mainiero F, Esposito V, Lauro C, Benigni G, Bernardini G, Santoni A, Limatola C. Enriched environment reduces glioma growth through immune and non-immune mechanisms in mice. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6623.
3. Ponzetta A, Benigni G, Antonangeli F, Sciumè G, Sanseviero E, Zingoni A, Ricciardi MR, Petrucci MT, Santoni A, Bernardini G. Multiple Myeloma Impairs Bone Marrow Localization of Effector Natural Killer Cells by Altering the Chemokine Microenvironment. Cancer Res. 2015;75(22):4766-77.
4. Molgora M., Bonavita E, Ponzetta A, Riva F, Barbagallo M, Jaillon S, Popović B, Bernardini G, Elena Magrini E, Gianni F, Zelenay S, Jonjić S, Santoni A, Garlanda C and Mantovan A. IL-1R8 is a checkpoint in NK cells regulating anti-tumor and anti-viral activity. Nature 2017; 551(7678):110-114
5. Bonanni V, Antonangeli F, Santoni A and Bernardini G. Targeting of CXCR3 improves anti-myeloma efficacy of adoptively transferred activated natural killer cells. J. for Immunotherapy of Cancer 2019 7, 290 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40425-019-0751-5