Annalisa graduated in Medical Biotechnology (BSc) at the University of Milan (Italy) in July 2012 and in Neurobiology (MSc) at the University of Pavia (Italy) with a thesis on the role of the synapse protein SNAP-25 in neurological disorders, under the supervision of Professor Michela Matteoli (Humanitas Institute). After one year of fellowship, she started her PhD program in Neuroscience under the supervision of Dr. Laura Cancedda and Dr. Marco De Vivo at IIT. During these 3 years she focused on the discovery and characterization of a novel drug candidate, which resulted in ameliorating core symptoms in Down syndrome and autism models. She obtained her PhD in Neuroscience in February 2019 from University of Genoa (Italy). Then, she obtained a position of Post Doc at Fondazione Telethon, affiliated to the Brain Development & Disease lab at IIT, to plan and perform further preclinical analysis for the development of the drug candidate toward advanced preclinical phases. After these 2 years, in 2021 she was awarded by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Jerome Lejeune Foundation to study epilepsy in Down syndrome, hosted by Brain Development & Disease lab at IIT.
Currently, she holds a position of Team Leader Neuropharmacology at IAMA Therapeutics, a recently founded series-A pharmaceutical company developing NKCC1 inhibitors to treat brain disorders.
Annalisa has a stron background in neurobiology, pharmacology, behavioural and biochemistry techniques, with 7 years of experience in CNS drug discovery.
