Michele Lai

Michele Lai graduated in biology and biotechnology at the University of Pisa in 2010. After his thesis experience in molecular virology, he spent two years as research assistant in Cambridge (UK) at the laboratory of Virology directed by prof. Jonathan Heeney, focussing his research on the development of a gene-editing tool to eradicate the HIV-1 provirus from infected cells. In 2012 he started a PhD in molecular biology at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, under the supervision of Prof. Daniele Piomelli. The PhD project aimed to block the chemo-resistant phenotype of invasive melanoma cells, using the CRISPR/Cas9 technique to ablate key genes involved in the sphingolipid metabolism. To complete this project, Dr. Michele Lai worked in three different laboratories: the Retrovirus Centre (Pisa), the Italian Institute of Technology (Genova) and the University of Irvine (California,USA). Dr. Michele Lai obtained the PhD in Translational Medicine in 2017 and now is a post-doctoral fellow in Scuola Superiore S.Anna. Since April 2019 he focused his research on cancer biology with the aim to find mechanisms to pause the chemo-resistance, developing novel adjuvant strategies in the treatment of malignant melanoma.