Prion Biology Laboratory

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Alessandro Didonna carried out undergraduate studies in cellular and molecular biology at the “Universita’ degli Studi” of Bari, Italy. He gained his Bachelor degree in 2004 with a thesis entitled “Quantitative analysis of mtTFA and 5 splicing isoform in H1299 cell line” and his Master degree in 2006 with the thesis “Genomic organization and evolution of TRA/TRD locus in Bovidae and Camelidae”. Currently he is enrolled in the PhD program “Functional and Structural Genomics” at International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS) in Trieste, Italy.
His scientific interests mainly concern the physiopathology of prion protein (PrP). During his PhD course he has worked in the Prion Biology Laboratory, focusing on cellular and molecular biology of PrP in neuronal cell models both in health and disease. In particular he tried to unravel the function of PrP in MAP Kinases cascades and how prion infection affects the signalling. He combined classic biochemical techniques with immunofluorescence microscopy to study the activation and distribution of different molecules involved in the neurodegenerative process. His skills span from recombinant DNA and molecular biology techniques to eukaryotic cell cultures and optical microscopy, to biochemical assays such as Western blot and ELISA.

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