Dr Elisa Pesenti
Lab Manager/ Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Elisa Pesenti joined the Earnshaw lab in November 2016 as Postdoctoral Research Associate member, funded by the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology (CMSB). After a Bachelor Degree in Biological Science and a Master in Molecular Biology obtained with highest degrees at the University of Genova (Italy), Elisa successfully completed her PhD in Biotechnology. During her studies, Elisa had the possibility to work on a diverse range of questions and to handle different organisms. She then decided to focus her career on molecular biology and in 2016 she completed a PhD thesis on the characterization of an unknown family of proteins involved in cellular motility (SH3BGR family) under the supervision of prof. Fabio Ghiotto (DIMES, Genova). During her PhD program, she joined the lab of Prof. Matthew Scharff (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York), and she took part in a project focused on studying somatic hypermutation and its link with DNA damage. She joined the Earnshaw lab fascinated by the new perspective in Synthetic Biology: her current main project is aimed to develop a new type of Human Artificial Chromosome (HAC) to help understanding the role of centrochromatin and pericentromeric heterochromatin in chromosome segregation. She also works on other projects focusing on the role of epigenetic marks as histone modifications on centromere biology. In July 2019 Elisa became Lab Manger for the Earnshaw lab, helping with managing the lab and developing research funding applications.
Elisa is a member of the Biotechnology Teaching Organization at University of Edinburgh and she helps by tutoring undergraduate students. She is also part of the BioDocSoc Committee to represent the Postdoc community. She is interested in Science Education and Public Engagement with schools around Scotland and she is an active member of the Edincell group at the University of Edinburgh. She also volunteers as Event organizer in collaboration with different partners (the British Science Association, Pint of Science, the Italian Chamber of Commerce in UK) to organize Scientific Events. Recently Elisa got involved in graphic science and creates a service of graphic editing with the Association of Italian Research Abroad (AIRI).
- Analysis of Complex DNA Rearrangements during Early Stages of HAC Formation. Pesenti E, M. Liskovykh, K. Okazaki, A. Mallozzi, C. Reid, M. A. Abad, A. A. Jeyaprakash, N. Kouprina, V. Larionov, H. Masumoto, W. C. Earnshaw. (2020).
- Generation of a Synthetic Human Chromosome with Two Centromeric Domains for Advanced Epigenetic Engineering Studies. Pesenti E, Kouprina N, Liskovykh M, Aurich-Costa J, Larionov V, Masumoto H, Earnshaw WC, Molina O. ACS Synth Biol. 2018
- H3K9me3 maintenance on a Human Artificial Chromosome is required for segregation but not centromere epigenetic memory. Martins NMC*, Cisneros-Soberanis F*, Pesenti E*, Shang W, Hori T, Nagase T, Kimura H, Larionov V, Masumoto H, Fukagawa T, Earnshaw WC (paper under review in Journal of Cell Science)
- Human Artificial Chromosome with Regulated Centromere: A Tool for Genome and Cancer Studies. Kouprina N, Petrov N, Molina O, Liskovykh M,Pesenti E, Ohzeki JI, Masumoto H, Earnshaw WC, Larionov V. ACS Synth Biol. 2018
- Metformin inhibits cell cycle progression of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells. Bruno S, Ledda B, Tenca C, Ravera S, Orengo AM, Mazzarello AN, Pesenti E, Casciaro S, Racchi O, Ghiotto F, Marini C, Sambuceti G, DeCensi A, Fais F; Oncotarget. 2015