Biographical Sketch
Deborah was born and raised in a little city in the South of Italy, a beautiful and peaceful place in front of the sea. While growing up, she met wise professors who approached her to science, unleashing her curiosity and fascination for the poetry behind natural phenomenon.
After high schools, she decided to leave her house, family and beloved places to move to Turin, one of the best Italian cities regarding academic education and research quality. Here she got her bachelor and master degrees in Cellular and Molecular Biology. Her master thesis was carried out in the field of cell physiology and it concerned the role of Beta1-integrin and TRPV4 in the osteoblast adhesion to different titanium surface topographies.
The experience of the master thesis internship was so important for her personal and professional growth, that instilled in her the desire to keep pushing her limits. Thus, she decided, once again, to forego her comfort zone: she left Italy within the Erasmus Traineeship program to join a research group in the Barcelona PRBB center, with the desire of challenge, the wish to learn as much as possible and to enjoy new work and life experiences. The Erasmus Traineeship ended too prematurely because of the health emergency related to Covid-19, but even brief this experience fed in her a completely new forma mentis. She realized how much was challenging and rewarding to adapt to a totally different life context, to embrace a new culture and to use a foreign language as a way to cross countries' barriers. Now she really feels a European citizen, no more afraid of the world and its wideness, but excited and eager to thoroughly explore it.
This international and challenging spirit was the main reason why she applied for a PhD fellowship outside Italy. In July she got accepted as PhD student within the TrainCKDis project and currently, she is working in Paris at the INEM Institute, as part of the team of “Epigenetics and Development” headed by Dr. Marco Pontoglio. Her project is focused on the investigation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the role played by the transcription factor HNF1β on the onset and progression of chronic kidney disease.