Our research is aimed at investigating the event involved in the ageing brain, including inflammation, redox homeostasis alteration, and senescence activation pathway, in the delicate equilibrium between physiological and pathological aging. The activities carried out by the research group include: i) the exploration of the dynamic processes involved in the maintenance of the balanced nucleophilic/electrophilic tone, including the Nrf2 activation pathway and the close equilibrium between the activity of first-line antioxidant enzymes and pro-oxidant ones; ii) the investigation of the crosstalk between the immune system and redox homeostasis, and iii) the study of the impact inflammation and altered redox status have on senescence mechanisms.
Re-thinking the etiological framework of neurodegenerative diseases, another line of research is aimed at characterising peculiar pathological changes occurring at peripheral levels, to identify early disease-specific biomarkers. An advanced proteomic approach is used to study proteins modification in terms of post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs), conformational changes, and truncated isoform. The lab is equipped with dedicated technology such as PROTEAN® i12™ IEF System and Syngene G:BOX Chemi XX6 for the study of proteome and PTMs-proteome by 2D-DIGE method. Protein conformation is further investigated with a potentiometric biosensor by using cyclic voltammetry and molecular dynamics simulation in collaboration with engineers and physicists' colleagues, respectively.
One of the ultimate challenges of our research is to identify a disease-specific fingerprint by combining different variables and co-variables with a deep learning analysis thanks to the mutual and multidisciplinary dialogue between us and data scientists.
Address:
viale Europa 11, Brescia 25123
date/time interval:
(January 1, 2000 - )