Alessia Soldano completed her undergraduate studies in Medical Biotechnology at the University of Trieste, Italy. During her PhD in the lab of Bassem Hassan at KULeuven, VIB Center for the Biology of Disease (Leuven, Belgium), she trained as a molecular and developmental geneticist using Drosophila melanogaster as a model. Her research work focused on dissecting the mechanisms underlying brain development, axon growth and guidance. During her first postdoc, she worked with the lab of Karel Talavera,
Laboratory of Ion Channel Research and TRP Research Platform Leuven, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium). She established a project that highlighted how the fruit fly can use gustatory neuronal circuits to directly detect the presence of bacterial contamination in the food via TRPA1 channel, leading to avoidance behavior. She then returned to Italy, to the lab of Alessandro Quattrone at CIBIO, University of Trento (Trento, Italy) where she established a new research line aimed at dissecting the role of epitranscriptomic modifications, in particular N6-Methyladenosine (m⁶A) RNA methylation, in brain development of the fruit fly. By the end of 2022, Alessia joined SISSA as a new assistant professor and head of the “Neurogenetics” lab where she will continue pursuing her research interests. In particular, she will be using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to investigate the genetics and the molecular mechanisms underlying differentiation, circuit formation and neuron-glia interaction during both brain development and in nervous system diseases. Among other molecular mechanisms, the Neurogenetics lab will also focus on the involvement of epitranscriptomic modifications in these processes.