Program
Maria received her Bachelors and Master’s Degree in Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2013. During her Master’s Degree, she became very interested in small RNA biology and started her PhD at the IMB in Mainz in 2013, in the group of René Ketting.
Her research focus was the piRNA (21U RNA) pathway in Caenorhabditis elegans, and in particular the RNA-induced epigenetic gene silencing (RNAe) triggered by these 21U RNAs. She focused her work on the identification and characterisation of a novel protein complex, connecting these two silencing pathways, involved in the establishment of RNAe. After completing her PhD in June 2019, she continued as a Postdoc in the Ketting lab for a few more months to finish her project.
In February 2020, she then left the lab and started in her current position in a Clinical Research Organisation (CRO), as Site Management Associate at ICON plc (formerly PRA Health Sciences). The role of a CRO is to provide support to biotech and pharma companies, spanning all phases of clinical trials, to contribute to the development of new therapies and new medical devices.
She is working in the Real World Solutions department, therefore her work is focused on late phase clinical trials. Her responsibilities include: monitoring the conduct of clinical trials at different hospitals across several European countries; data management; preparation and conduct of regulatory submissions; collection, review and maintenance of essential documents.
