Francesca Pentimalli
Professor of General Pathology, Department of Medicine & Surgery, LUM University, Casamassima (BA), Italy
- Publications: N/A
- Citations: N/A
- Keywords: cell cycle; cancer; mesothelioma; cyclin dependent kinases; retinoblastoma family proteins; p53; p27
Short Bio
- Francesca Pentimalli is Associate Professor of General Pathology at the Department of Medicine & surgery of the LUM University, Casamassima, Bari Italy. She obtained her MSc Degree in Biological Sciences summa cum laude in 1997 and her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Genetics in 2002, at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Her work was mostly dedicated to the identification of new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for solid tumors, focusing in particular on the molecular mechanisms underlying thyroid cancer development and progression. From 2001 to 2003, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Carlo M. Croce at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Kimmel Cancer Institute, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia where she contributed to the development of several mouse models of tumorigenesis and to the identification of new targets for cancer treatment. In 2004 she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology and Pathology at the University of Naples Federico II, School of Medicine where she mainly focused on the study of the cell response to DNA damage. At the University of Naples Federico II, School of Medicine she also completed the Specialization Programme in Clinical Pathology and Clinical Biochemistry, summa cum laude. From 2006 to 2007 she worked as Assistant Editor for Nature Reviews Cancer and Nature Reviews Genetics, at the Nature Publishing Group, London, UK. She was an integral member of both small editorial teams overseeing the publication of timely invited review articles with high scientific and editorial standards, under the inspiring guide of Magdalena Skipper (currently Nature Editor in Chief). More recently, she served as Executive Editor of Annals of Research in Oncology, and from 2017 she is Review Editorial Assistant for Cell Death & Differentiation, and editor of Cell Death & Disease, Springer Nature. From 2007 to 2021 she has been working at the National Cancer Institute of Naples IRCCS Pascale Foundation, where she coordinated the Cell Cycle & Cancer lab. Since 2009 she also served also Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, College of Science and Technology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Her research activity is mainly devoted to the dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying cell cycle regulation and the cell response to DNA damage, to study how these processes are coordinated and altered in cancer, and how they can be exploited therapeutically as antitumoral strategies. These studies recently led to the identification of new potentially actionable factors involved in the cell response to DNA damage and to the development of new possible antitumoral approaches against malignant mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer correlated to asbestos exposure. She authored/co-authored over a hundred peer-review articles in the field of cancer genetics and therapeutics (ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4740-6801), book chapters and research highlights, with over 15000 citations (Google Scholar February 2022). She participated as an invited speaker/chairman to more than 30 National and International conferences and mentored undergraduate, PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. She is ad-hoc reviewer for various scientific journals and national and international funding agencies.
