mariapassafaro

Name: Maria
Surname: Passafaro
Curriculum vitae: Since 2002 she is Research at the Institute of Neuroscience (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) in Milan. As neuroscientist she has studied the molecular mechanism that regulate formation, plasticity and function of excitatory glutamate synapses, focusing on genetic disorders. From 1998 until 2002 she was Postdoc in Morgan Sheng’s laboratory at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston USA. She focused on role of AMPA receptors on spine formation and synapse function. She pursued this line of research when she returned to Italy and was nominated as an Assistant Telethon Scientist in 2002. In the last ten years the focus of her research was on role of three genes in brain structure and function (TM4SF2, OPHN1, Shroom4) whose mutations are responsible of severe forms of X-linked mental retardation and that encode proteins which are linked, directly or indirectly, to the synaptic function and dendritic spines development. She was promoted Associate Telethon Scientist in 2007.