Position: RTDA
Address: Department of Computer Science, University of Turin, Italy
Dr. Ferrero is a senior researcher at the Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Turin. The achievement of the master’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology and of the Doctorate in Complex Systems for Life Sciences (University of Turin) allowed Dr. Ferrero to acquire a solid interdisciplinary background allowing him to effectively apply computational techniques for the integrative analysis clinical and lifestyle data with genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic data in the context of basic and applied research projects. In these contests, Dr. Ferrero studied the role of noncoding RNAs, microRNA (miRNAs), circular RNA (circRNAs) and long noncoding RNA (lncRNAs) not only as transcriptional regulators but also as specific biomarkers of pathologies or lifestyle that can be measured in the biofluids. For these investigations, in 2019, Dr. Ferrero was awarded a Fellowship from the Italian Cancer Research Association (AIRC) for the project “Host-gut microbiome small RNA crosstalk: an innovative source of biomarkers for an accurate colorectal cancer detection”. Dr. Ferrero main research topic is the molecular activity of extracellular RNAs detectable in human biofluids, their role in complex diseases (particularly of the gastrointestinal tract) and their modulations in relationship to individual exposure to environmental factors, including pollution, lifestyle, and dietary habits. The role of these molecules in the host-microbial interactions is also investigated by the application of bioinformatic strategies for the integrative analysis of next-generation sequencing data.