Prof. Lleo obtained her degree in Medicine from the University of Milan, Italy, in 2000, and has been licensed to practice general medicine throughout Europe since July 2001. She completed her clinical training and received the Board Certification in Internal Medicine in 2006. She was a  researcher between October 2006 and April 2010 at the University of California-Davis (Davis, CA, USA) in the division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology directed by Prof. M. Eric Gershwin.

From 2017 she has assumed the responsibility of the Hepatobiliary Immunopathology Laboratory  in collaboration with the Hepatobiliary Surgery Unit (Chief Prof. Guido Torzilli) under the Scientific Direction of Professor Alberto Mantovani. Since Jan 2019 she holds a position as Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in Humanitas University.

Prof. Lleo has co-authored 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals with a total Impact Factor above 700, and H-index (Scopus) of 40.

Her areas of scientific expertise are biliary disorders, with particular attention for cholangiocyte biology and liver innate immune response. She specifically works on cholangiocarcinoma, the cancer arising from epithelial cells lining intrahepatic or extrahepatic biliary ducts. Her work has been founded by the Italian Ministry of Health and AIRC. She is member of the “European Network for the Study of Cholangiocarcinoma (ENS-CCA)”; a scientific network that aims to define the clinical management and treatment for cholangiocarcinoma along Europe. The ENS-CCA has been recently funded by the European Grant COST Action of the Horizon 2010 program (Project ID: CA18122).

She deals on daily basis with patients affected of Liver Diseases, including Liver Cancer. She participates at the weekly meetings of the Liver Cancer Group in the Humanitas Cancer Center, were 25-30 liver Cancer patients are weekly managed in the multidisciplinary tumor board.

Active Funding includes:

• AIRC (Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro) – IG 2019 (ID: 23408). Role: PI
• Italian Ministry of Health RF 2016 (GR-2016-02364990). Role: CO-PI
• EUROPEAN CHOLANGIOCARCINOMA NETWORK (EUROCHOLANGIO-NET, Cost Action CA18122): Role: WP leader
• 5×1000 Humanitas 2019. Role Co-PI
• Italian Ministry of Health RF 2019 (NET-2019-12370049). Role: PI