Biography
Dr. Bruscia received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome (Italy) in 2002. Since she was an undergraduate, her research has been dedicated to Cystic Fibrosis. During her undergraduate studies, she began working in the exciting field of gene therapy. She spent two years in the laboratory of Dr. Dieter Gruenert at the University of Vermont (Burlington, VT), where she worked on non-viral gene therapy strategies. She started her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Diane Krause at Yale School of Medicine in 2002. Here, she explored the use of bone marrow-derived cells as a vehicle for gene therapy in the airway and intestinal epithelia in murine models for CF. In 2005, Dr. Bruscia was appointed as an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine and in 2010 promoted as an Assistant Professor in the same department. In 2016, she was promoted to Associate Professor. In the past ten years, her research interest has focused on the role of CFTR in the immune system, particularly in macrophages. The current focus of her lab is to explore emerging therapeutic strategies able to target several aspects of CF lung disease, while still proceeding with studies focused on understanding how the lack of CFTR is impairing macrophage function.