Stefano is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Milan and a Group Leader at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO, Milan, Italy).

Stefano performed his doctoral work in the laboratory of Prof. Andrea Musacchio at the European Institute of Oncology (Milan, Italy). In Prof. Musacchio’s lab, he focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying the functioning of the spindle assembly checkpoint, a surveillance mechanism ensuring the fidelity of chromosome segregation, in human cells. During his graduate work he made several contributions to the understanding of the regulation of the process of chromosome segregation, focusing, in particular, on the functions of the mitotic kinases Aurora B, Haspin and Mps1.

For his post-doctoral studies he joined the laboratory of Prof. Angelika Amon at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, US). The main focus of his work at MIT was on several aspects of the consequences of aneuploidy on cellular functions. To shed light on how changes in chromosome number impact cell physiology, he set up a powerful and tunable system that allow to study the immediate consequences of aneuploidy in human cells. His studies started to uncover how an unbalanced chromosome number affects the cell’s proteome and provided accurate information on the immediate consequences of aneuploidy on genome integrity.

In his own lab, he aims to provide a molecular characterization of the pathways deregulated in aneuploid cells, with the hope to facilitate the development of therapeutic interventions targeting the aneuploid state of cancer.