The funding awarded to Alessia Soldano, researcher at SISSA and Director of the School’s Neurogenetics Laboratory, amounts to €1,653,000. This grant was provided by the Italian Science Fund (FIS) of the Ministry of University and Research (Mur). Due to its rigorous selection process and the size of the funds allocated, the FIS is considered an Italian counterpart to the ERC, the most prestigious European funding program for scientific research, aimed at supporting scientists engaged in basic research.
Soldano’s project, funded by Mur, will investigate how modifications to RNA—particularly a process called "methylation"—can contribute to the development of a specific type of nervous system cells, glial cells. The three-year project will use fruit flies and organoids—lab-grown structures that replicate a simplified and miniaturized version of a body organ, in this case, the brain—as models.
Alessia Soldano explains: “The idea is to study the epigenetics of RNA, meaning the non-genetic modifications this molecule undergoes that regulate its function. Our current knowledge in this field is quite limited,”. She continues. “We don’t yet understand what happens at different times and in different tissues at this level. With this project, we aim to contribute to the understanding of this crucial function in a ‘time- and tissue-specific’ manner, while also creating a topological map.”
The project will begin in March 2025 and is set to conclude in 2028.
(Image by Alessia Soldano)