Letizia Straniero graduated in Medical Biotechnology and Molecular Medicine at the University of Milan. In 2017 she obtained her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the same university with a project focused on the study of the molecular basis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). During this 3-year program she spent a research period at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) in Prof. Matthew Farrer’s lab to gain knowledge in whole-exome sequencing analysis. Then she moved at Humanitas University where she continued pursuing her interest in PD genetics elucidating the contribution of the genetic variation in lysosomal genes in the pathogenesis of the disease.

Recently, she started a research project aimed to the comprehensive characterisation of a unique cohort of monozygotic twin pairs discordant for PD, in order to identify genomic, transcriptomic and epigenetic signatures that could anticipate disease diagnosis and to uncover novel factors/pathways that may modify disease susceptibility. In the context of this wider project, she spent six months in the Laboratory for Transcriptome Technology directed by Dr. Carninci (RIKEN, Japan) where she learnt how to characterise the non-coding portion of the genome and in particular the role of somatic recombination mediated by repeated elements.