Rosalba Gornati graduated with honour in Pharmacy at the University of Milan in 1990. She is currently Full Professor of Cytology and Histology at the Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, University of Insubria (Varese).
Scientific Activities:
She studied membrane lipid expression and enzyme activities involved in their biosynthesis as diagnostic method in sphingolipidosis and as potential biomarkers for neoplasia.
She also used Xenopus laevis embryos for FETAX (Frog Embryo Teratogenesis Assay in Xenopus) bioassay to evaluate the teratogenic risk of xenobiotics.
More recently, she focused her research on human adipose stem cell primary cultures, in combination with collagen scaffolds, for regenerative medicine applications.
She is also interested in toxicity and gene expression modifications induced by metal nanoparticles both in cell cultures and in animals. Currently she is studying magnetic nanoparticle-enzyme system conjugated to enzymes or antibiotics for medical and biotechnological applications. This research project was awarded by “Telecom Italia working capital”. She is also involved in studying the nanoparticles cell internalization by electrophysiological methods.
Funded projects
In 2003 and 2011 she got the grants by "Associazione Amici dell'Università dell’insubria"
She was recipient of the PRIN project 2010-2011 - prot. 2010ARBLT7_008 “System Biology in the study of xenobiotic effects on marine organisms for the evaluation of the environmental health status: biotechnological applications for potential recovery strategy”, and of the CARIPLO project “NANOSTEM - Engineered Nanoparticle Toxicity on Mesenchymal Stem Cells”.
Other activities
She was Member Country Substitute within the COST Action TD1204 Modelling Nanomaterial Toxicity (MODENA 2012-2016).
In 2015 she participated as a tutor, to QUALITYNANO platform, a four-year project which involved 28 European structures with the aim of developing and implementing projects on aspects of Nanosafety and support individual mobility for research purposes. The research was conducted at University College Dublin.
As tutor and as participant to the COST project, she was involved in a STSM (short-term scientific missions aimed at supporting individual mobility for research purposes) at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
Since 2007 she is member of the Doctoral School Committee now called "Biotechnology, Biosciences and Surgical Technology ". She has been the Supervisor of a three PhD projects.
From 2013 to 2018 she was coordinator of “SUA-RD” Commission. From November 2018 she is the president of the bachelor course of Biological Science
2008-2015 She has been referee of National and Foreign research projects.She was Assistant Editor of the Italian Journal of Zoology.
She was co-author of textbooks: “Biologia della cellula”, “Biologia dei tessuti” “Biologia cellula e tessuti” (EdiErmes).
She was Tutor and coTutor of numerous dissertations.
She organized the 59th GEI meting (Varese 2013)
She has been member of the Organizing Committee of the XI National Congress of the Italian Association of Biotechnology (Varese 2012) and the 64th Congress of the Italian Zoological Union (Varese 2003).
She presented the results of their scientific research at numerous National and International conferences and conventions.
She is Referee for several journals: Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, Journal of Molecular Evolution, BMC Genomics, Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology, Aquatic Toxicology, Journal of Sea Research. She is a permanent referee of Aquaculture.
She is co-author of more of 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Hindex 25