Elisa Frullanti completed a PhD in Cancer Genetics of Open University of London at the affiliated center Isitituto Nazionale Tumori (INT, Milan, Italy). She has been working in the field of lung cancer (LC) genetics for 10 years first in Milan, at INT (2006-2012), and then at University of Siena (2013-today) in the Medical Genetics Unit. In INT she conducted her research project aimed to identify functional genetic elements associated with LC prognosis through genome wide association studies, genetic linkage and transcriptome studies winning in 2010 an AIRC Triennal Fellowship. In 2011 she won the Galilei Young Research Scientist Award Rotary International. She is currently Associate Professor of Genetics in the Dept. Medical Biotechnologies at University of Siena. Her main research interests were the dissection of molecular and genetic bases of LC in never smoker young patients and in other diseases following innovative “omics” approaches that integrate genomic and transcriptomic data.
From 2019, she will be the group leader of a research project funded by MIUR-PRIN 2017 about Gene Therapy in PCDH19 disease. In the last 3 years, EF has introduced in her lab the use of NGS for liquid biopsy as an innovative diagnostic and prognostic technique for the early detection and the dynamical monitoring of cancer growth and resistance, coordinating of 2 PhD students and a Postdoc. In the last 2 years, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she devoted part of her research activities to study the genetic basis of the clinical variability of the response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. She has extensive experience in the field of omic genetic techniques, in the next-generation sequencing of both germline, somatic and circulating DNA investigating the contribution of germline and somatic genetic variation to cancer susceptibility and outcomes. She is currently director of the Cancer Genomic and Systems Biology Lab of the Department of Medical Biotechnology of the University of Siena. EF’s research activity is substantiated by 70 original articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals with a total IF>400 and H-index of 20.