Valentina Abbiento

Valentina earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science at the Università degli Studi del Sannio in 2018 with a thesis investigating on the role of mitochondria in neurodegeneration. The scientific project takes place in the Erasmus traineeship experience carried out in the “Cell Metabolism and Quality Control” laboratory led by Prof.ssa Paula Moreira in the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal).
Subsequently in the same year, she moved to Siena and obtained her Master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Università degli Studi di Siena in April 2021. She carried out her Master’s degree experimental work in MAD-Lab under the supervision of D.ssa Claudia Sala and she worked in Covid-19 Project. Her thesis project is based on the characterization of two single point mutations found in SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and the evaluation of its impact on monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein previous identified by MAD-Lab team. Through this period, she gained experience in the expression and purification of recombinant proteins and she performed also different kind of in vitro assays.
From June 2021, Valentina is a researcher in the group led by Dr. Rino Rappuoli at Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences (TLS) in Siena where she works in Covid-19 Project and Gono Project.

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