Barbara Cassani graduated from the University of Milan in Pharmacy in 2001 and received her Ph.D. in
Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele,
Milan—Open University, London—in 2007. Supported by an EMBO Long-term Fellowship,
she performed her postdoctoral studies at the Gastrointestinal Department,
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA. At the end of
2012, she moved back to Italy (Milan), where she started up her own group at
the Institute of Genetic and Biomedical Research of the National Research
Council (IRGB-CNR), hosted at the Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan. In 2016,
she became a tenured scientist at the IRGB-CNR and, in 2021, moved to the
University of Milan. Her group is interested in understanding the interactions
between the immune system and different tissues during disease pathogenesis. To
accomplish these goals, she combines immunological studies in patients,
relevant disease and infectious models, and state-of-the-art high-throughput
technologies. Macro areas of interest: (1) the role of host-microbe
interactions in the pathogenesis of primary immune deficiencies (PIDs) and
autoimmunity; (2) host-related immunological and microbiological factors
associated with the development of bacterial infections; and (3) the role of
the immune system in tumorigenesis and chemoresistance.
