Emilia M.C. Mazza received her MS in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Modena (2010) and her PhD degree in Molecular Medicine at the University of Milan (2014) under the guidance of Prof. Silvio Bicciato. She spent part of her PhD and post-doc as visiting researcher at the Jackson Memorial Hospital, University of Miami. Since 2009, her principal research interest has been the design and application of computational methods to analyze genomic data obtained from high-throughput technologies. She developed several computational approaches for the study of gene expression regulation and her research activities spanned from the bioinformatics analysis of genomic data and information to the study of the immune system in physiological and pathological conditions.

As part of the Laboratory of Translational Immunology, Dr. Mazza started a new line of research in single cell biology by different means, including high-content polychromatic flow cytometry and single cell RNA sequencing. Her main focus is to combine different complementary single cell technologies to obtain a comprehensive analysis of the complex interactions at the level of the different immune cell types. Currently her work is mostly focused on devising new approaches to understand the complexity of these single cell data, and obtain information that can be ultimately used to define novel molecular mechanisms of T cell dysfunction in human cancer with a focus on CD4+ regulatory T cells (Treg) and their role in the resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Mazza’s research activity has been funded by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (Fondazione AIRC, My First AIRC Grant) and by the Italian Ministry of Health. Her research team includes Naomi Sefora Agrò and Ivano Rotella.