Scopus ID: 27268039100

Dr Serafin graduated in Medical Biology at the University of Padua (Italy) in 2008, after a year spent at the University of Wuerzburg (Germany) where her commitment to cancer research started. In 2012 she completed her PhD in Oncology and Surgery Oncology at the Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology at the University of Padova where she studied the role of Notch3 signaling both in colorectal cancer and in leukemia. (Serafin V. et al, Journal of Pathology 2011, Pastò A. et al, Cancer Research 2014, Ghisi M. et al, Blood 2011). During her PhD she had the opportunity to collaborate with the Oncohaematology Laboratory headed by Prof. Basso where afterward she started her postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Accordi. During this period she has been supported for three years by the Fondazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (FIRC) and two years by the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi (FUV). She published 13 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals regarding phosphoproteomic profiling of pediatric Acute Leukemias and other not pediatric diseases. Among them, she initiated and developed a project regarding glucocorticoid resistance in pediatric patients affected by TALL. She observed a hyperactivation of LCK kinase in patients more resistant to glucocorticoids and in ETP T-ALL, a subset of patients highly resistant to therapy (Serafin V. et al, Blood 2017, Serafin V. et al, Leukemia 2017). These evidences have an important clinical relevance since this pathway can be pharmacologically inhibited to sensitize cells and turn patients responsive to the action of glucocorticoids. Focusing on the characterization of molecular mechanisms underlying the glucocorticoid resistance in 2019 she won the My First AIRC Grant, which allowed her to start her independent career as junior principal investigator at the Institute of Pediatric Research “Cittàdella Speranza”. In 2019 she also had the opportunity to spend a period of time at the Northwestern University in Chicago where she improved her molecular basic science competence in order to carry on this ambitious project. Now, thanks to AIRC, FUV, AIL and IRP support she is building up her research group applying for founding to increase her autonomy as scientist and develop her own field of research. Dr. Serafin’s scientific production is based on the publication of 20 original papers, being in 6 of them the first or corresponding author with an average IF of 9.2 and an H-index=9.

E-mail: valentina.serafin@unipd.it