Mara Brancaccio

• 2023 present   Professor of Cell Biology in the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences, University of Torino.
• 2006-2023  Associate Professor of Cell Biology in the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences, University of Torino.
• 2002-2006 Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics, Biology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Torino.
• 2000-2002    Research fellow at the Department of Genetics, Biology and Biochemistry Faculty of Medicine, University of Torino.
• 2000 PhD in "Human Biology: molecular and cellular basis" 
• 1996-1997  Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston), USA

My research interests are focused on chaperones, a class of proteins involved in the recovery from stress conditions. As a visiting scientist at the Harvard University, I discovered the protein Melusin as a new interactor for the beta1 integrin in the myocardium (1). Further investigations revealed that Melusin is a muscle specific chaperone protein with the remarkable ability to protect the myocardium against pressure overload, myocardial infarction and ischemia reperfusion injury (2,3). My research journey continued with the cloning and characterization of Melusin paralog in vertebrates, which I named Morgana (4). The subsequent research revealed that the expression of Morgana is essential for the development of both drosophila and mouse (4). Intriguingly, we also found that alteration in Morgana expression, both through haploinsufficiency (5,6) and overexpression, are implicated in the on set and progression of tumors (7,8,9,10).