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Beatrice Bodega graduated in Medical Biotechnology in 2003 and obtained a PhD in Biotechnology Applied to Medical Sciences in 2006 at the University of Milan.

In 2009 she moved to Rome, to the laboratory of Valerio Orlando (Dulbecco Telethon Institute at the Santa Lucia Foundation), to specialise in epigenetics and in investigating the role of transposable elements (LINE1) in human cell differentiation.

In 2014 she started her independent career as Group Leader at INGM. Since 2021 she has been Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Milan.

For 20 years she has been working to understand the molecular function of non-coding DNA, in particular in the modulation of cellular processes (differentiation, homeostasis, plasticity), and how this portion of the genome modulates the response to the environment, adaptation and the progression of human diseases.

Her laboratory combines molecular, genomic and advanced imaging approaches with computational biology to describe the molecular mechanisms of DNA repetitive sequences, particularly transposable elements, in human biology, with a strong focus on translational aspects of biomedical research.

Sergio Abrignani is Manager and Scientific Director of INGM, the Istituto Nazionale di Genetica Molecolare “Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi”, and Full Professor of Pathology and Immunology at the University of Milan. He has 20 years of international experience in vaccine research in pharma and biotech environments and 15 years of academic research experience in a non-profit research institute (INGM) at the University of Milan.

He received his MD from the University of Padova. From 1986 to 1993 he worked as lab head at the Ciba-Geigy Research Centre in Basel (Switzerland). From 1993 to 1999 he was Director of the Immunology and Virology Research Unit at Chiron Vaccines in Siena (Italy).

From 1999 to 2005 he was Vice President of R&D at Chiron Corporation in San Francisco (USA). Since 2006 he has been Manager and Scientific Director of INGM, a non-profit research foundation aimed at the discovery and early development of new therapies and diagnostics for human diseases (neoplastic, infectious and autoimmune), with a particular interest in secondary prevention.

His research has focused on immunology and on the interactions between viruses and human cells. He has published about 130 scientific papers, with an h-index of 73 (GS) and more than 22,000 citations, and holds about 30 granted international patents. He is a member of many Italian and international scientific societies and academies. For his studies on the hepatitis C virus, in 2004 he received the Public Health Gold Medal of Merit from the President of the Italian Republic.

In 2011 he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant, the most important and prestigious competitive grant for European researchers. He has been a member of the Consiglio Superiore di Sanità of the Ministry of Health since 2019, and in 2021 he was appointed member of the Italian National Advisory Board (CTS) for the COVID pandemic.

Federica Marasca graduated with full marks in Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and obtained a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. During this period she worked in the laboratory of Prof. Valerio Orlando at the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome and discovered a novel epigenetic mechanism of response to environmental changes in adult tissues.

In 2016 she joined the Genome Biology laboratory directed by Prof. Bodega at INGM in Milan. Here, during her postdoctoral work, she investigated the function of LINE1 RNA transcripts as a new checkpoint regulating the function of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes: the discovery that led to the birth of T-ONE Therapeutics. She is currently a senior researcher at INGM.

Her major scientific interest is how differentiated cells deal with a changing environment; she aims to discover novel molecular and epigenetic mechanisms that explain the complexity of human cells and their adaptability to the environment in physiological and pathological contexts.