Affiliation: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Life Sciences

Dr. Alessandra Recchia received her M.Sc. in Biology from II University of Rome “Tor Vergata” in 1994. She obtained her Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from University of L’Aquila in 1999, working at the Research Institute of Molecular Biology (IRBM) in Rome. In 1997 she was visiting scientist at McMaster University (Ontario, CANADA) under the supervision of Prof. F. Graham who pioneered the Adenoviral vectors. Thanks to a fruitful collaboration between IRBM and Prof. Graham, she developed the first helper dependent Adenoviral vector (HDAd) carrying the integration machinery of adeno-associated virus (AAV) able to integrate in the AAVS1 region of chromosome 19. Then (2000-2002), as post doc in Prof. F. Mavilio’s lab at TIGET Institute (Milan), she generated an improved HDAd/AAV vector demonstrating its application in human primary cells and in transgenic mice carrying the human AAVS1 site. For this study she received in 2004 the Young Investigation Award by the European Society of Gene Therapy. In 2003, as senior post doc in DIBIT Institute (Milan), she participated to the clinical translation of retroviral vector (RV) technology in milestone clinical trials for gene therapy of Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa (JEB) and she was involved in the molecular follow up of clinical trials for genetic and acquired disorders (adenosine deaminase deficiency, JEB, graft-versus-host disease). In 2005 she joined the Department of Biomedical Science at University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, as Assistant Professor in Molecular Biology. Since 2008 she established her independent group devoted to gene therapy for monogenic disorders. She contributed to unravel the integration profile of RV and lentiviral vectors employed in many clinical trials. In 2011-2012 she began studying gene editing and Sleeping Beauty (SB) system. She employed these systems to correct monogenic disorders (adRP, JEB and RDEB) in vitro and in mouse models. Due to the heterogeneity of diseases and target genes/tissues, she employed and optimized different viral (Ad, AAV, lentiviral vector) and non-viral (electroporation, chemical transfection) systems to achieve efficient and safe delivery of the gene editing toolboxes or SB components into clinically relevant target cells that, in most of the cases, are refractory to canonical chemical transfection.