People
Irene Farabella, PI
Giovanni Armenise Career Development Awardees
I received a MSc in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Milano- Bicocca, Italy, in 2008 after a visiting period sponsored by a fellowship from EXTRA PLUS Program financed by Fondazione Cariplo at the Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics (CMBI), Nijmegen supervised by Prof. Gert Vriend and Prof. Marialuisa Lavitrano. In 2013, I got a PhD sponsored by a Wellcome Trust Funded PhD studentship in Structural Biology working at ISMB (UCL/Birkbeck College, London, UK) under the supervision of Prof. Maya Topf and Prof. Gabriel Waksman. For her postdoc training, I joined Marc Marti-Renom’s lab at the Centre Nacional d’ Anàlisi Genòmica – Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CNAG-CRG), Barcelona as a Juan de la Cierva Incorporación Postdoctoral Fellow. During this time, I also worked as a visiting researcher in the C.-Ting Wu’s lab at Harvard Medical School. In September 2022 I established my Armenise-Harvard Integrative Nuclear Architecture Lab at the Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in the Center for Human Technologies in Genoa, where we will investigate the 3D genome structural variability at the nanoscale.
Chantal Usai
Post Doctoral Researcher
After receiving an MSc in Chemical Science from the University of Genoa, my academic journey led me to a PhD in Physics and Nanoscience, where I specialized in Biophysics. My doctoral research explored chromatin dynamics at the nanoscale, particularly focusing on chromatin organization modifications related to genetic diseases. Now, I'm enthusiastic about contributing to the research on 3D genome organization and chromatin plasticity, leveraging my background in super-resolution microscopy. Beyond academia, I cherish time spent in nature, and I'm passionate about hiking and exploring the beauty of mountains.
Ivan Piacere
I'm a Master's Student in Data Science at the University of Padua; the focus of my work is the evaluation of various automated methods for loci identification and decoding in point-cloud chromatin imaging data obtained from Single Molecule Localization Microscopy experiments and the implementation of such methods in CIMA. Before Data Science I completed a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science at the same university. In my spare time I like reading, playing tennis and watching 2000's tv shows.
Anthony Palmieri
I recently graduated from the Data Science Master's program at the University of Padua, Italy, with a bachelor's in applied mathematics from the same university. Currently, I'm delving into the world of chromatin analysis at the Farabella lab. My work revolves around developing and testing clustering algorithms to decipher 3D chromatin structures from point-cloud imaging data obtained via Single Molecule Localization Microscopy. Outside the lab, you'll often find me absorbed in some books, gaming, or just enjoying the outdoors with my army of dogs and cats.