BIO
Enza Lonardo graduated in 2003 in Biotechnology at University “Federico II” of Naples (IT) and obtained her PhD in 2008 in “Medical Biotechnology” at University “Federico II” of Naples. From june 2009-september 2012, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO, Madrid, Spain), in the Pancreatic Cancer group headed by Prof. C. Heeschen. From october 2012-march 2017, she moved as senior postdoctoral researcher to the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB, Barcelona, Spain), in the Colorectal Cancer group headed by Prof. E. Batlle. In april 2017, she joined the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics (IGB-CNR, Naples, Italy), directed by Prof. A. Simeone, as Principal Investigator.
RESEARCH
Genetic alterations underlying the metastatic dissemination processes have not been identified thus far. Therefore, it is currently not possible to discriminate which patients are at higher risk of developing metastasis or to design targeted therapies to prevent this process. The main goal of my research is to increase survival of pancreatic cancer patients by exploring the contribution of the tumour microenvironment to the failure of presently available oncological treatments.
HOBBIES / EXTRAS
I am a wine passionate and since 1998 I am winemaker and owner of cellar “Cantine Lonardo” http://www.contradeditaurasi.it/
From the beginning I combined the wine and science, searching for autochthonous grape and yeasts variety. The experimental wine production methods, developed with contributions of the Federico II University of Naples and the University of Palermo, gave very interesting results.