Bio

Laura Civiero graduated from the University of Padua in Molecular Biology and obtained a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the University of Verona. Laura also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at the University of Padua. She is currently a professor of Physiology at the Department of Biology at the University of Padua and the Laboratory Head of Molecular Physiology at the IRCCS San Camillo in Venice. Her research activities are funded by both national and international institutions and are documented in 37 publications with 1966 citations and an h-index of 23 (Google Scholar), as well as numerous participations and organizations of national and international conferences and educational seminars.

Research Interests

The brain is a network of neuronal connections, surrounded by a scaffold of glial cells with a multitude of crucial functions. A specific type of glial cells, astrocytes, are emerging as modulating factors in various neurological diseases. Laura investigates how astrocytes contribute to the removal of neurotoxic molecules and obsolete synapses in an attempt to maintain neuronal homeostasis. She is using various in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo approaches to uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying astrocyte dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases and brain cancer. Her discoveries will help manipulate this function for therapeutic purposes.