Alessia Valente

Curriculum vitae

Born on March the 28th, 1994. In March 2019, she obtained the master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (LM-09) at the Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna. From March 2018 to March 2019 she carried out her thesis at the “Mario Negri” Institute in Milan, in which she investigated the prognostic value of the circulating levels of the complement lectin pathway initiators to identify the presence of atherosclerotic plaques at high risk of rupture in patients. Since November 2019 she has been enrolled in the Ph. D. Program of Experimental Neuroscience at the School of Medicine & Surgery of the University of Milano-Bicocca, carrying out her activity at the Laboratory of Pathophysiology of Cerebrovascular Functions at ‘Mario Negri’ Institute. Her aim is to investigate the efficacy of Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC), a simple, non-pharmacological technique, in an ischemic stroke model and improve the clinical translability of treatment thanks to the implementation of a multicenter preclinical randomized controlled trial. 

PhD Research Project

Multi-center Translational Trial of Remote Ischemic Conditioning in Acute Ischemic Stroke (TRICS)

  • Curriculum: Neuroscienze Sperimentali
  • Tutor: Prof. Carlo Ferrarese

Stroke is a major public health burden, causing 5.5 million deaths worldwide every year and being responsible for an overwhelming percentage of patients living with disability. Restrictions to the only pharmacological therapy presently approved – the thrombolytic tissue plasminogen activator ‘tPA’ – leave the majority of people who have a stroke without treatment. The recent advent of mechanical thrombectomy and recanalization techniques have improved treatment, but still new therapeutic strategies are necessary. Numerous treatments have been reported to provide a beneficial outcome in experimental animal stroke models. However, these treatments (with the exception of tPA) have failed in clinical trials. To improve the translation of treatment efficacy from bench to bedside, the new concept of multi-center preclinical randomized controlled trials (pRCT) is emerging as a necessary step before moving from animal modeling to clinical trials. Systematic reviews of experimental stroke research have consistently reported low-quality scores, negative publication bias, and insufficient data from aged animals or those with comorbidities, questioning the robustness and predictive value of single-laboratory pre-clinical experiments.

Posters

Proteins of lectin pathway of complement activation as biomarkers of vulnerable atherosclerotic lesions. Fumagalli S., Carbone F., Perego C., Bertolotto M., Pane B., Dallegri P., Valente A., Spinella G., Palombo D., Montecucco F., De Simoni MG. Poster presented at 17th EMCHD (European Meeting on Complement in Human Disease) which took place in Madrid, September 2019.

Workshops

  • PhD Students Meeting, Milano, Giugno 2019.
  • STROKE (6° congresso nazionale sull’ictus cerebrale), Milano, Maggio 2019.
  • Second BRAYN (Brainstorming Research Assembly for Young Neuroscientists) Conference, Milano, Novembre 2019.
  • Fifth NeuroMI International meeting “Food for Brain: promoting health and preventing diseases” Milano, Novembre 2019.
  • NeuroMI 2020 virtual annual meeting, Dicembre 2020.
  • First International Stroke Immunology Conference, Marzo 2021.  

Publications

  • Carbone F., Valente A., Perego C., Bertolotto M., Pane B., Spinella G., Palombo D., De Simoni M.-G., Montecucco F., Fumagalli S. Ficolin-2 serum levels predict the occurrence of acute coronary syndrome in patients with severe carotid artery stenosis. 2021 Pharmacological Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.phrs.2021.105462
  • Mercurio D., Piotti A., Valente A., Oggioni M., Ponstein Y., Van Amersfoort E., Gobbi M., Fumagalli S., De Simoni M.-G. Plasma-derived and recombinant C1 esterase inhibitor: Binding profiles and neuroprotective properties in brain ischemia/reperfusion injury. 2021 Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2021.01.002
  • Tettamanti M., Beretta S., Pignataro G., Fumagalli S., Perego C., Sironi L., Pedata F., Amantea D., Bacigaluppi M., Vinciguerra A., Valente A., Diamanti S., Mariani J., Viganò M., Santangelo F., Zoia C.P., Rogriguez-Menendez V., Castiglioni L., Rzemieniec J., Dettori I., Bulli I., Coppi E., Gullotta G.S., Bagetta G., Martino G., Ferrarese C., De Simoni M.G. Multicentre translational Trial of Remote Ischaemic Conditioning in Acute Ischaemic Stroke (TRICS): Protocol of multicentre, parallel group, randomised, preclinical trial in female and male rat and mouse from the Italian Stroke Organization (ISO) Basic Science network. 2020 BMJ Open Science, DOI: 10.1136/bmjos-2020-100063

Further info

Elisabetta Donzelli
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