Ph.D. Student
Marine Biotechnology Deparment

Tel.: +39 081 5833xxx
Fax: +39 081 7641355
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Curriculum Vitae

Director of studies: Clementina Sansone
Internal supervisor: Christophe Brunet (SZN)
External supervisor: Adriana Albini (MultiMedica, Milano)

Appointed on project: “Microalgal derivatives as nutraceutical supplements for chemoprevention”

Research Interests

My PhD project is focused on the study of bioactive compounds produced by marine microalgae to use as chemopreventive products. I will be involved in the study of biotechnological promising microalgal strains to obtain compounds with beneficial properties for human health (antioxidant, chemopreventive, immunomodulant molecules). I will start with the stimulation of the growth of the selected microalgae, thanks to environmental manipulation, and the setup of extraction procedure in order to optimise the production of bioactive compounds, improving efficacy and yield of compounds of interest. In parallel, I will carry out the biological screen of the extracts, by performing bioactivity screening on different human cell lines, from a complete panel including cancer cells and their counterpart normal. I will assess bioactivity at molecular level through gene expression analysis and I will confirm molecular data through proteomic analysis. Synergy between different compound families and microalgal extracts will be also investigated, as a potential new tool for enhancing the biological activities.
The final aim is to setup standard operative procedures to obtain enriched and highly bioactive extracts to be candidate for new functional foods, in order to meet growing demands of ingredients able to promote human health by acting in a protective way.

Publications

Pistelli L, Del Mondo A, Smerilli A, Corato F, Piscitelli C, Pellone P, Carbone DA, Sansone, C, Brunet (2021). Microalgal Co-Cultivation Prospecting to Modulate Vitamin and Bioactive Compounds Production. Antioxidants. doi: 10.3390/ANTIOX10091360

Pistelli L, Sansone C, Smerilli A, Festa M, Noonan DM, Albini A, Brunet C. (2021). MMP-9 and IL-1 beta as Targets for Diatoxanthin and Related Microalgal Pigments: Potential Chemopreventive and Photoprotective Agents. Mar. Drugs. doi: 10.3390/MD19070354

Natale CF, Angrisano T, Pistelli L, Falco G, Calabrò V, Netti PA, Ventre M. (2020). Topographic Cues Impact on Embryonic Stem Cell Zscan4-Metastate. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2020.00178