Phd in HUMAN BIOLOGY AND MEDICAL GENETICS

email: valerio.fulci@uniroma1.it
phone:

Education

2002/2005: University of Rome “La Sapienza” PhD in Human Biology, Molecular and Cellular bases.
1996/2002 University of Rome “La Sapienza” Degree in Molecular Biology. Final score: 110/110 cum laude

Working experiences in Scientific Research:
2013-present: in 2013 I was awarded a three year (further extended for three more years in 2016) grant by Epigen (Italian Flagship Epigenome Project CNR-MIUR) through application to a competitive call to study the epigenomic role of AGO2 protein in human cells. My research is mainly focussed on the nuclear functions of small RNAs and on the epigenetic functions of AGO2 in cancer cells. To this end I am currently employing state of the art biochemical and biomolecular high-throughput approaches (SILAC, NGS) and molecular approaches (CRISPR-CAS, reverse genetics) in cell lines.
My research recently revealed an interplay between nuclear AGO2 bound small RNAs and nucleosome positioning at human Transcription Start Sites (Carissimi et al, NAR 2015). Furthermore, I have recently characterized a novel class of AGO2 bound small RNAs (Laudadio et al, IJG 2018) and a nuclear small RNA which regulates human telomerase activity by binding TERC lncRNA (Laudadio et al, EMBO Reports, 2019; Laudadio et al, Cell Cycle, 2019). Currently ongoing projects in my lab include:

- SWI/SNF as a candidate modulator of YAP/TAZ transcriptional activity: implications for tumorigenesis and tissue regeneration
- Epitranscriptomic (5mC) modifications of mammalian miRNAs
- Regulation of TERC lncRNA by AGO proteins
- Characterization of AGO1 and AGO2 double KO human cell lines (obtained by genome editing)

2008-2013. Researcher at University of Rome “La Sapienza”. I focussed my research interests on the role of miRNAs in Leukemias and in T-Lymphocyte activation. To identify miRNA targets I took advantage of the by biochemical purification of RISC complexes, which allowed me to identify miR-21 targets in lymphocytes. I also became interested in characterizing nuclear RISC complexes in human cell lines. The results of my research were published on peer reviewed journals (Fulci et al, GCC 2009; Curtale et al, Blood 2010; Carissimi et al, Biochemie 2014; Tavolaro et al, GCC 2015; Verduci et al Leuk Res 2015)

2007-2008 Post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Giuseppe Macino, I set up one of the first qPCR approaches to miRNA quantification to profile miRNA expression in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (Fulci et al, Blood 2007).

2005-2006 Supported by a Scholarship awarded by Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti I investigated miRNA expression profiles in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. I spent a period in the lab of Thomas Tuschl at Rockefeller University, New York (USA) to apply the miRNA cloning technique. During this period I had the chance to interact with a stimulatin international level in one of the top laboratories in my field. I had the privilege of being involved in the development of a technique that would have evolved into the current NGS approaches. During this period I became aware of the relevance of bioinformatic tools in the management of big data arising from massive parallel sequencing and started my formation in bioinformatics by attending the first bioinformatic course of a long series. The results obtained were published on Cell (Landgraf et al, Cell 2007)

2002-2005. PhD Student in the lab of Professor Giuseppe Macino. Investigating the role of PKC in light signal transduction in the model organism Neurospora crassa, I got familiar with molecular cloning techniques, Proteins immunoprecipitation, kinase assays.

Technical skills: Northern Blot, Southern Blot, Western blot, protein immunoprecipitation, PCR, qRT-PCR, molecular cloning, microarray, Small RNA library cloning, mammalian cell cultures, Neurospora crassa cultures, recombinant proteins expression and purification,luciferase assays, cloning, packaging and use ov lentiviral expression vectors, CRISPR-CAS knock-out.

Bioinformatics: Very good knowledge of the Linux operating system. PERL, python and bash scripting. Usage of biological databases (ENSEMBL,Gencode, Pubmed, SRA,GEO). R statistical analysis software (affymetrix microarray analysis(limma, oligo), Deseq2, CummeRbund, plotting packages). Alignement and analysis of deep sequencing data (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, Drop-seq) with the following tools: Bowtie1/2, Hisat2, MACS2, CuffLinks, bedtools, NGSplot. Metagenomics analyses (Qiime2, metaphlan2).

Collaborations:

Michele Zampieri, Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Characterization of the 5mC profile of human miRNAs.
Salvatore Cucchiara, Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Metagenomic analysis o the human gut microbiome.
Tiziana Bonaldi, IEO Milan, Italy. Mass-spec characterization of AGO2 protein complexes.
Justin Stebbing, Imperial College London, UK. TP53 and AGO2 fuctional interaction.
Nikolaus Rajewsky, MDC, Berlin, Germany. Characterization of sRNAs arising from TSS and TTS sRNAs. Characterization of AGO2 KO cells by Drop-seq.
Francesca Zanconato, University of Padua. SWI/SNF as a candidate modulator of YAP/TAZ transcriptional activity: implications for tumorigenesis and tissue regeneration

Languages:
Italian mother tongue.
Excellent written and spoken english

Bibliometric Data (Scopus)
Publications: 31
Citations: 4443
h-index: 17

Congress partecipation as Invited Speaker:
Genetics and behaviour evolution. At Genetics School in Cortona, Italy. Neurospora crassa: a model organism to study the molecular bases of Chronobiology. 2007.
4th international CLL Workshop. 17th may 2008, Salzburg, Austria. “MicroRNAs in the pathogeny of CLL”.
Institute for Research in Biomedicine Bellinzona, Switzerland. The role of miRNAs in lymphocyte Biology. 29th May, 2008.

MACS Symposium "MicroRNA in physiology and disease" Bologna, Italy. miR-21 and miR-146a: regulators of lymphocyte biology. 1 st Dec 2009

EPIGEN & BLUEPRINT joint symposium: Exploring the Epigenome in Health and Disease. Rome, Italy. AGO2 and SWI/SNF cooperate to determine nucleosome occupancy at human TSS. Oct, 1st 2014.

Forum SIGENP Young Researchers, Rome, Italy. Bioinformatics in Biomedical Research. April, 16th 2018



Major recent Financing:

- PRIN 2017-Under 40: SWI/SNF as a candidate modulator of YAP/TAZ transcriptional activity: implications for tumorigenesis and tissue regeneration (National Coordinator, 2019-22)
- Epigen (The Epigenomics Flagship Project, MIUR) “The epigenomic function of AGO2 protein in human cell lines" (2013-19).
- Sapienza University of Rome: “The role of AGO2 in telomere maintenance in human cells (2018-21)”

Abroad experiences:
2000: Erasmus program in Gent, Belgium.
2005: Visiting Student, Tuschl Lab, Rockefeller University, New York NY, USA.