Legenda
EDUCATION
27/01/2014 Doctor in Philosophy, Doctoral School in Life and Health Sciences, specialising in Molecular Biotechnology. Molecular Biotechnology Centre (MBC), Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Science, University of Turin, Italy. Potential application in regenerative medicine of stem cells derived from testis. PI: Prof. Fiorella Altruda.
2013 State exam for biology qualification (Abilitazione alla professione di Biologo).
15/07/2009 MSc in Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences, University of Florence, Italy. Grade: 110/110 Magna cum laude. Supervisor: Prof. Annarosa Arcangeli.
15/11/2007 BSc in Biology, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences, University of Florence, Italy. Grade: 110/110 Magna cum laude. Supervisor: Prof. David Caramelli.
CURRENT POSITION
20/12/2022- Researcher (RTDA). University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, 50139, Florence Italy.
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2021-2022 Postdoctoral Fellow. University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, 50139, Florence Italy. Polyploid cells in AKI and CKD progression. PI: Prof. Paola Romagnani.
2021-2022 L’Oreal-Unesco for women in science founded PostdoctoralFellow, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, 50139, Florence Italy. Polyploid cells as a tool to prevent chronic kidney disease progression. PI: Prof. Paola Romagnani.
2019-2021 Marie Sklodowska-Curie founded PostdoctoralFellow, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, 50139, Florence Italy. Role of endocycle in Acute Kidney Injury Response and Chronic Kidney Disease development. PI: Prof. Paola Romagnani.
2017-2019 Postdoctoral Fellow, Meyer Children’s University Hospital, Viale Pieraccini 24, 50139, Florence Italy. Exploring human renal progenitor cells for personalized medicine. PI: Prof. Paola Romagnani.
2016-2017 Associate Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Weill Cornell Medical College - The Seandel Lab - New York, 1300 York Avenue, 10065 New York. De novo mutations in paternal age effect diseases. PI: Prof. Marco Seandel.
2014-2016 Postdoctoral Research Fellow Level 1, Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin (UCD), Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Investigating TGFβ signalling during Diabetic Nephropathy. PI: Prof. John Crean.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
2023 Invited speaker to the Italy Single Cell & Spatial Discovery Symposium 2023, 24 October Milano
2023 Invited speaker to the Italian Society of Nephrology (SIN), 4-7 October 2023 Torino, Italy.
2023 Invited speaker to the 3rd International Symposium on Microgenomics 2023 - June 28 (Workshop), June 29-30 (Symposium), Florence, Italy (https://microgenomics.symposium.inrae.fr/invited-speakers2/letizia-de-chiara)
2022 Invited speaker to the World Conference of Nephrology 2023, March 30 – April 02, Bangkok, Thailand
2022 Invited to moderate at the congress of the Italian Society of Nephrology (SIN), 5-8 October 2022 Rimini, Italy.
2022 Selected as an Emerging Leader by the International Society of Nephrology(https://www.theisn.org/in-action/grants/emerging-leaders/#2022-cohort)
2022 Invited speaker to the World Conference of Nephrology 2022, February 24-27, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
2021 Awarded a Veronesi Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate the role of polyploid cells in kidney cancer. Declined to accept a fixed term contract from the University of Florence
2021 Invited to moderate at the congress of the Italian Society of Nephrology (SIN), 6-9 October 2021 Rimini, Italy.
2021 Winner of an International Society of Nephrology-Kidney International Editorial Fellowship 2021-2023.
2021 Winner of a L’Oreal-Unesco for women in science award to investigate the role of polyploid cells in CKD progression in kidney biopsies
2021 Winner of a travel grant to present at the 58th ERA-EDTA, 5-8 June 2021, Berlin, Germany.
2021 Awarded a grant for the contest “Idea for excellent science” from the University of Florence
to support young investigator applying for ERC starting grant.
2020 Awarded a young investigator abstract award from the American Physiological Society as part of the Kidney Week-reimagined
2020 Winner of a virtual access grant to participate to the early meeting “Advances in Research Conference: Single-Cell Biology” as part of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Kidney Week-reimagined.
2020 Winner of a virtual access grant to present at the 57th ERAEDTA fully virtual congress, 6-9 June 2020 Milan, Italy.
2019 Awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship H2020-MSCA-IF-EF-RI-2018 (Reintegration Panel). Title of the project: ROAR: Role of endocycle in Acute Kidney Injury Response and Chronic Kidney Disease Development.
2019 3rd classified presentation at “la ricerca in tre minuti”- La notte dei ricercatori (BRIGHT) 2019. Winner of a travel grant for congress participation.
2018 Awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Seal of Excellence for the application “Role of Endocycle and Hypertrophy in the Response to Acute Kidney Injury”.
2013 Winner of a prize for best PhD project at the ABCD joint National PhD meeting, Pesaro, October 2013.
2012 Awarded a mobility fellowship from the CIB (Consorzio Interuniversitario di Biotecnologie) to join Prof. vanPelt’s lab in AMC, Amsterdam as a visiting student.
ATTERNDED WORKSHOPS AND TRAININGS
2022 Harvard Catalyst-Introduction to Implementation Research: Designing & Evaluating Interventions.
2021 Introduction to R for Biologists. University of Cambridge.
2016 Cambridge Advanced Certificate (CAE). The Arena School of English, 67 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Grade C2.
2016 Building Research Leaders. UCD Research Skills and Career Development programme, University College Dublin, Belfield 4, Dublin, Ireland..
2015 LAST (Laboratory Animal Science and Training) Certificate for Rodents, Category A, B and C in line with the Directive 2010/63 EU. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
SUPERVISION
2023 Supervisor of 1 PostDoc, University of Florence.
2018-2022 Supervisor of 6 Biotechnology Master Students, University of Florence.
2016-2017 Supervisor of a summer Internship student (Merna Hussein, Medical Student Research Award from Weill Cornell Qatar) and co-supervisor of a PhD rotation student, Weill Cornell Medical College NYC.
2014-2015 Supervisor of a Biotechnology Master and 2 Pharmacology undergraduate students, UCD.
2014-2018 Co-supervisor of a PhD student, University of Turin (Elvira Smeralda Famulari).
TEACHING
2023 Technical Sciences and laboratory medicine. Biomedical Laboratory Technician, UNIFI
2023 Single cell and spatial omics. Master Degree in Advanced Molecular Sciences, UNIFI
2017-2018 Series of lectures to the 2nd year students of Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, UNIFI, focused on “the biology of spermatogonial stem cells” and “potential application of stem cells in regenerative medicine”.
2015 Cell-to-Cell Communication tutorials to 2nd year medical students, UCD.
2014-2015 Series of lectures to 3rd year Pharmacology students in stem cell biology and renal regeneration, UCD.
2011-2013 Tutorial activity to 2nd year obstetric and nurse students in Cellular Biology at the University of Turin.
ORGANIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS
April 2018 Scientific committee of the 30th Meeting of the European Renal Cell Study Group (ERCSG) 2018. 19-22 April 2018, Artimino, Prato, Italy.https://www.ercsg2018.org/node/9
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Selected conference oral presentations
2022 Kidney tubule polyploidization drives chronic kidney disease after acute kidney injury. The 34th Meeting of the European Renal Cell Study Group (ERCSG) 2022, 7-10 April 2022, Cyprus.
2021 Kidney Tubule Polyploidization Is an Evolutionary Conserved Mechanism Required to Survive AKI. The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) annual meeting-Kidney Week, fully virtual congress, 4-7 November 2021 San Diego, USA.
2021 Kidney Tubule Polyploidization Drives CKD Progression After AKI. Basic Research Forum for Emerging Kidney Scientists, fully virtual congress, 21 October 2020 Denver, USA.
2021 Tubular epithelial cell polyploidy is essential to survive AKI but contributes to CKD progression. The 58th ERA-EDTA (European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association) fully virtual congress, 6-9 June 2020 Milan, Italy.
2020 Tubular epithelial cell polyploidization is required to survive AKI but it contributes to CKD development. Basic Research Forum for Emerging Kidney Scientists, fully virtual congress, 21 October 2020 Denver, USA.
2020 Tubular epithelial cell polyploidization is required to survive AKI but it contributes to CKD development. The 57th ERA-EDTA (European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association) fully virtual congress, 6-9 June 2020 Milan, Italy.
2019 Polyploidization is essential to survive AKI but it contributes to CKD development. The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) annual meeting-Kidney Week 2019, 7-10 November 2019, Washington D.C., USA.
2019 Endocycle is essential to survive Acute Kidney Injury but it contributes to Chronic Kidney Disease development.The 31th Meeting of the European Renal Cell Study Group (ERCSG) 2019, 28-31 March 2019, Korinthia, Greece.
2018 Investigating the endocycle-mediated response in human renal tubular epithelial cells.The 30th Meeting of the European Renal Cell Study Group (ERCSG) 2018, 19-22 April 2018, Artimino, Prato, Italy.
2015 miR302 regulates SNAI1 expression to control mesangial cell plasticity. Matrix Biology Ireland Meeting, Dublin 2-4 December 2015.
2015 Role of miR302 in Diabetic Nephropathy.The 27th Meeting of the European Renal Cell Study Group (ERCSG) 2015, 26 February – 1th March 2015, co. Louth Ireland.
2014 The Polycomb repressor complex and Smad3 constitute a switch enhancing complex that interprets TGFβ signaling to control cell fate in diabetic microvascular complications The annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology, “Kidney Week”, Philadelphia 11-16 November 2014.
2012 Murine Germline-cell Derived Pluripotent Stem Cells differentiated into tubular-like renal epithelial cells can protect from renal ischemia/reperfusion injury. ABCD congress “Stem cell, development and regenerative medicine”, Turin 4-6 May 2012. Winner of a fellowship for best oral presentation.
Selected conference poster presentations
2022 scRNA-seq analysis of polyploid tubular epithelial cells reveals a specific hypertrophy program triggered in response to AKI. The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) annual meeting-Kidney Week, 3-6 November 2021 Orlando, USA.
2021 Yap1 controls polyploidization in kidney tubular epithelial cells. Annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. ASCB-EMBO. 1-10 December 2021. Fully virtual.
2019 Endoreplication is essential to survive Acute Kidney Injury but it contributes to Chronic Kidney Disease development. Molecular mechanisms of tissue injury, repair and fibrosis. EMBO-FEBS lecture course. 23-31 May 2019 Spetses Island, Greece.
2015 Targeting the Polycomb Repressor Complex chromatin remodeling machinery for therapeutic benefit in Diabetic Nephropathy. The annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology, “Kidney Week”, San Diego 3-8 November 2015.
2015 EZH2 and Smad3 form a switch enhancing complex that interprets TGFβ signaling to control cell fate during differentiation. The “International Society for Stem Cells Research” ISSCR meeting 2015, Stockholm 23-28 June 2015.
2013 Renal tubular-like cells generated from Germline cell-derived pluripotent stem cells protect kidney from ischemic injury. The “International Society for Stem Cells Research” ISSCR meeting 2013, Boston 12-15 June 2013.
2011 Murine Germline-cell Derived Pluripotent Stem Cells differentiated into tubular-like renal epithelial cells can protect from renal ischemia/reperfusion injury. “Stem cells in development and disease”, Berlin, 11-14 September 2011.
REVIEWING ACTIVITIES
2023-present Associate Editor Journal of Nephrology
2023-present Associate Editor for Nephrology dialysis transplantation (NDT)
2021-present Consulting Editor for Kidney International (KI)
2020-present Review Editor for Frontiers in Renal Pharmacology
2020-present Reviewer for Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN)
2019-present Review Editor for Frontiers MolecularBiosciences
2018-present Reviewer for Nephrology dialysis transplantation (NDT)
2018-present Reviewer for Journal of Clinical Medicine (JCM)
2017-present Reviewer for Gene
MEMBERSHIP OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
2020-present Member of European Renal Association (ERA-EDTA)
2020-present Member of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN)
2019-present Junior Member of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS)
2014-present Member of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN)
2013-present Junior Member of International Society for the Stem Cells Research (ISSCR)
2012-present Member of the Italian association for cell biology and differentiation (ABCD)
PUBLICATIONS
1) Cirillo L, De Chiara L, Innocenti S, Errichiello C, Romagnani P, Becherucci F. Chronic kidney disease in children: an update. Clin Kidney J. doi: 10.1093/ckj/sfad097
2) Kunte SC, Marschner JA, Klaus M, Honda T, Li C, Motrapu M, Walz C, Angelotti ML, Antonelli G, Melica ME, De Chiara L, Semeraro R, Nelson PJ, Anders HJ. No NLRP3 inflammasome activity in kidney epithelial cells, not even when the NLRP3-A350V Muckle-Wells variant is expressed in podocytes of diabetic mice. Front Immunol. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.
3) De Chiara L, Semeraro R, Mazzinghi B, Landini S, Molli A, Antonelli G, Angelotti ML, Melica ME, Maggi L, Conte C, Peired AJ, Cirillo L, Raglianti V, Magi A, Annunziato F, Romagnani P, Lazzeri E. Polyploid tubular cells initiate a TGF-β1 controlled loop that sustains polyploidization and fibrosis after acute kidney injury. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. doi: 10.1152/ajpcell.00081.2023 4) Melica ME, Angelotti ML, Antonelli G, Peired AJ, Conte C, De Chiara L, Mazzinghi B, Lazzeri E, Lasagni L, Romagnani P. Preparation of Human Kidney Progenitor Cultures and Their Differentiation into Podocytes. Bio Protocol. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.4757.
5) 2022 International Society of Nephrology Emerging Leaders.Green nephrology: a series of mini reviews on minimizing the environmental impact of kidney health care. Kindey Int. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2023.03.038
6) Xia Y, De Chiara L, Drummond IA.Tubuloid as an alternative model of ADPKD. Kidney Int. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2023.03.021
7) Becherucci F, Landini S, Palazzo V, Cirillo L, Raglianti V, Lugli G, Tiberi L, Dirupo E, Bellelli S, Mazzierli T, Lomi J, Ravaglia F, Sansavini G, Allinovi M, Giannese D, Somma C, Spatoliatore G, Vergani D, Artuso R, Rosati A, Cirami C, Dattolo PC, Campolo G, De Chiara L, Papi L, Vaglio A, Lazzeri E, Anders HJ, Mazzinghi B, Romagnani P.A Clinical Workflow for Cost-Saving High-Rate Diagnosis of Genetic Kidney Diseases. JASN. doi: 10.1681/ASN.0000000000000076
8) De Chiara L and Romagnani P. Polyploid tubular cells and chronic kidney disease. Kidney International doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2022.08.017.
9) De Chiara L., Conte C., Semeraro R., Diaz-Bulnes P., Angelotti ML., Mazzinghi B., Molli A., Antonelli G., Landini S., Melica ME., Peired AJ., Maggi L., Donati M., La Regina G., Allinovi M., Ravaglia F., Guasti D,. Bani D., Cirillo L., Becherucci F., Guzzi F., Magi A., Annunziato F., Lasagni L., Anders HJ., Lazzeri E., Romagnani P. Tubular cell polyploidy protects from lethal acute kidney injury but promotes consequent chronic kidney disease. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33110-5.
10) Lyubenov L., Shi C., Zhao D., Yang L., Lei Y., Mammadova-Bach E., De Chiara L., Semeraro R., Landini S., Romagnani P., Vörg E., Devarapu SK., Welz R., Kiessig ST., Anders HJ. Intravenous Gluplasminogen attenuates cholesterol crystal embolism-induced thrombotic angiopathy, acute kidney injury and kidney infarction. Nephrol Dial Transplant. 14:gfac273. doi: 10.1093/ndt/gfac273.
11) Melica ME., Antonelli G., Semeraro R., Angelotti ML., Lugli G., Landini S., Ravaglia F., Ravaglia F., La Regina G., Conte C., De Chiara L., Peired AP., Mazzinghi B., Donati M., Molli A., Steiger S., Magi Curriculum Vitae Letizia De Chiara, Bartalucci N., Burger A., Lazzeri E., Anders HJ., Lasagni L. and Romagnani P. Differentiation of crescent-forming kidney progenitor cells into podocytes attenuates severe glomerulonephritis in mice. Science Translational Medicine.
12) De Chiara L., Xia Y. Modelling AKI in vitro: taking organoids to the next level. Kidney Int. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2022.05.023.
13) Ravaglia F., Melica ME., Angelotti ML., De Chiara L., Romagnani P., Lasagni L. The Pathology Lesion Patterns of Podocytopathies: How and why? Front Cell Dev Biol. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.838272. 14) De Chiara L., Lugli G., Villa G., Raglianti V., Husain-Syed F., Ravaglia F., Romagnani P., Lazzeri E. Molecular Mechanisms and Biomarkers Associated with Chemotherapy-Induced AKI. Int J Mol Sci. doi: 10.3390/ijms23052638.
15) Gnemmi V., Li Q., Ma Q., De Chiara L., Carangelo G., Li C., Molina-Van den Bosch M., Romagnani P., Anders HJ., Steiger S. Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia Promotes Recovery from Ischemic Organ Injury by Modulating the Phenotype of Macrophages. Cells. doi: 10.3390/cells11040626.
16) De Chiara L., Conte C., Antonelli G. and Lazzeri E. Tubular cell cycle response upon AKI: revising old and new paradigms to identify novel targets for CKD prevention. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. doi:10.3390/ijms222011093.
17) Peired A.J., Antonelli G., Angelotti M.L., Allinovi M., Guzzi F., Sisti A., Semeraro R., Conte C., Mazzinghi B., Nardi S, Melica M.E., De Chiara L., Lazzeri E., Lasagni L., Lottini T., Landini S., Giglio S., Mari A., Di Maida F., Antonelli A., Porpiglia F., Schiavina R., Ficarra V., Facchiano D., Gacci M., Serni S., Carini M., Netto G.J., Roperto R.M., Magi A., Christiansen C.F., Rotondi M., Liapis H., Anders H.J., Minervini A., Raspollini M.R., Romagnani P. Acute kidney injury promotes development of papillary renal cell adenoma and carcinoma from renal progenitor cells. Science Translational Medicine 2020. doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaw6003.
18) Peired A.J., Mazzinghi B., De Chiara L., Guzzi F., Lasagni L., Romagnani P., Lazzeri E. Bioengineering strategies for nephrologists: kidney was not built in a day. Expert Opin Biol Ther 2020. doi:10.1080/14712598.2020.1709439.
19) Andrews D., Oliverio G., De Chiara L., Watson A., Doyle B., Wynne K., O, Connell P. O’Brien C., Cagney G., and Crean, J. Unravelling the transcriptional responses of TGFβ: Smad3 and EZH2 constitute a regulatory switch that controls neuroretinal epithelial cell fate specification. FASEB J 2019. doi:10.1096/fj.201800566RR.
20) De Chiara L. and Romagnani P. Tubule repair: with a little help from my “unexpected” friends. Kidney International 2019. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2018.11.019.
21) De Chiara L., Famulari E., Fagoonee S., Van Daleen S., Buttiglieri. S, Revelli A., Tolosano E., Silengo L., vanPelt A.M.M. and Altruda F. Characterization of human mesenchymal stem cells isolated from testis. Stem Cells Int. 2018 Sep 3; 2018:4910304. doi: 10.1155/2018/4910304.
22) Allinovi M., De Chiara L., Angelotti ML. Becherucci F. and Romagnani P. Anti-fibrotic treatments: A review of clinical evidence. Matrix Biol. 2018 Apr 11. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2018.02.017.
23) Lazzeri E., Angelotti M.L., Peired A., Conte C., Marschner J.A., Maggi L., Mazzinghi B., Lombardi D., Melica M.E., Nardi S., Ronconi E., Sisti A., Antonelli G., Becherucci F., De Chiara L., Romero Guevara R., Burger A., Schaefer B., Annunziato F., Anders H.J, Lasagni L. and Romagnani P. Endocycle-related tubular cell hypertrophy and progenitor proliferation recover renal function after acute kidney injury. Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 9;9(1):1344. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03753-4.
24) De Chiara L., Andrews D., Watson A., Oliviero G., Cagney G and Crean J. miR302 regulates SNAI1 expression to control mesangial cell plasticity. Scientific Reports. Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 14;7:42407. doi: 10.1038/srep42407.
25) Yamada M., De Chiara L. and Seandel M. Spermatogonial Stem Cells: Implications for Genetic Disorders and Prevention. Stem Cells Dev. 2016 Sep 5.
26) De Chiara L. and Crean J. Emerging transcriptional mechanisms in the regulation of epithelial to mesenchymal transition and cellular plasticity in the kidney. J Clin Med. 2016 Jan 12;5(1).
27) De Chiara L., Fagoonee S., Ranghino A., Bruno S., Camussi G., Tolosano E., Silengo L. and Altruda F. Renal cells from spermatogonial germline stem cells protect against kidney injury. JASN, February 2014 vol. 25 no. 2 316-328.
28) Fagoonee S., Hobbs R., De Chiara L., Cantarella D., Piro RM., Tolosano E., Medico E., Provero P., Pandolfi PP., Silengo L. and Altruda F., Generation of functional hepatocytes from mouse germline cells derived pluripotent stem cells in vitro, Stem Cells Dev., 2010 Aug.; 19 (8): 1183-94.