Profile

I grew up in Italy 🇮🇹, in the sunny Sicily, where I spent most of my time swimming in the sea 🌊 After my undergrad I moved to Germany 🇩🇪 for an internship, and between a pretzel 🥨 and an experiment 🔬, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. It might be already obvious, but one of my favourite things is to travel 🌍 I love to explore new cultures and places! When I am at home, I absolutely practice yoga🧘‍♀️, play the guitar 🎸 and videogames 🎮. As any good Italian, I love homemade pizza 🍕

I have always been extremely fascinated by the brain. How does it work? Why certain people’s brain does not function properly? Scientists have been trying for years to unravel our brain and understand how to “adjust” it when it breaks. Despite being associated with a computer, scientists are still understanding how the brain is wired!

And this is where I am, trying to understand how the brain works. Specifically, I work with a molecule of sugar called ‘O-GlcNAc’, which can be found in thousands of proteins (the molecules that do all the hard work in our body) in our cells.

Why would sugar attach to proteins you might wonder!

Well, it has been discovered that many molecules (not only sugar) can be attached to proteins, and they change their chemical properties. It’s almost like in a videogame where you can find upgrades for your weapon, and instead of shooting fire, you can shoot ice! Cool, isn’t it?! And because of that, it is pretty important that these molecules are properly attached to proteins.

What I work on is trying to understand why patients with Congenital Disorder of Glycosylation (CDG)/Intellectual Disability cannot properly attach these sugar molecules in their brain’s proteins. The brain of patients with CDG/Intellectual Disability struggle to grow as your brain, and this makes their lives extremely tough! So what I do is trying to understand why defects in the attachment of O-GlcNAc in proteins cause Intellectual Disability, and how we can cure them!

This is what neurons look like after I grow them for 10 days! We use fluorescent dyes to look at them under the microscope.

How do I do that? I use embryonic stem cells (a very particular kind of cells that can become many things, such a

s neurons!) and I see how changes in the attachment of O-GlcNAc affect their development in neurons. To do that I use several biochemical analyses, such as labelling the neurons with fluorescent markers to study their development and understanding what’s going on. At the same time, when I identify that something is not working properly, I try to look for a cure! What I am currently exploring is the use of sugar (eye for an eye, isn’t it?!).

I usually have very busy days, but the good thing about my work is that you’re free to set up your work as you like! This works pretty well for me, as I am definitely not a morning person!

I usually go to work around 9:30 am, where I start my day doing experiments. These can take from a few hours to several days! For example, generating neurons takes approximately 10 days! However, I tend to multitask, so I will usually perform more than 1 experiment at the time. This is possible because in experiments there are often ‘waiting times’ between one step and another, so instead of waiting I simply do something else!

This is where I take care of my cells. Cells don’t really like germs, so we need to culture them in sterile conditions.

I usually finish with my experiments in the late afternoon, but after that, I need to analyze my data. This involves looking at your data, understand the results, and see if your hypothesis matches the results! You won’t always get what you expected, so you’ll need to go through what is known (scientists release publications of their results) and what you saw in your experiments, and reformulate a new hypothesis. It’s a very iterative process! Once I’m done with analyzing my data, I will end my day planning my next experiments!

Between an experiment and an analysis, I usually follow seminars from other scientists and reading papers, because you always need to be updated about the latest in your field! We also have meetings with other members in the lab now and then to look at our data and get feedback!

The Dundee Science Centre is a charity and learning resource for the Dundonian community. They aim to help and support families in their kids’ learning process and bring together science and the public.

The centre is full of very cool stuff! Before the lock-down, I used to volunteer there!

In these challenging times, the Dundee Science Centre is supporting families and schools through Home Learning Programmes, which provide a range of activities, including hands-on, easy to complete at home. During the school term each week they started a new theme, such as Forensic Week, Microbes Week and Body Bits Week, which are available throughout the entire year.

With the prize money, I’d like to help the Dundee Science Centre in setting up a “Brain Week”, which will include a booklet for children that will explore how the brain works and learning resources that will help families in the home learning process!