PhD-candidate
Department of Molecular Hemostasis, Sanquin Research
Michela Leoni is an Early Stage Researcher in the EDUC8 consortium and works in the Molecular Hematology department in Sanquin (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).
She obtained her master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Bologna (2021).
Her PhD will explore original strategies to induce FVIII-specific tolerance. She will focus on Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells (LSEC), which are scavenger cells that process and present antigens on MHC class I or MHC class II molecules and have the capacity of regulating CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses and inducing the development of Treg. Specifically, she will exploit recent advances on the characterization of FVIII-derived immuno-dominant T cell epitopes to induce specific tolerance upon targeting of Liver LSECs with FVIII immunogenic peptides or recombinant proteins containing FVIII domains.
During the ISTH she will present her project "Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells as a novel target for tolerance induction to FVIII" during the Hemophilia Inhibitors I session.
Monday, July 11, 2022
11:45 AM – 12:00 PM