Associate Professor

Simona Capsoni received her DVM degree in 1990 and a PhD in Chemotherapy (1995) at University of Milan, Italy. During her studentship she spent more than one year at the Section on Pharmacology, NIMH, NIH (Bethesda, USA). In 1996, she received a fellowship to be trained as industrial researcher. During that period, she spent one year at the International School fo Advanced Studies in Trieste (ISAS, Italy) and then she moved to Fidia Pharmaceuticals in Abano Terme (Italy).
In 1998, SC moved back to ISAS and started her research in neurotrophins and Alzheimer's diseade and a long-lasting collaboration with Prof. Antonio Cattaneo. She characterized neurodegenerative phenotype of the AD11 anti-Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) mouse model. In 2000 she started to set up the intranasal method to deliver NGF to the brain. IN 2002 SC became the Head of the AD Research Program at Lay Line Genomics S.p.A., a biotech company spin-off of ISAS. In that period, she started to characterize the mutant from of human NGF, painless NGF (hNGFp).
In 2008 she moved to the European Brain Research Institute where she continued to characterize hNGFp and she had the opportunity to have as co-supervisor prof. Rita Levi-Montalcini on the characterization of the effects of NGF deprivation on chicken embryo development.
In 2010 sge joined the Bio@SNS Laboratory of Biology at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (Italy) as contract junior professor where she discoverend that NGF and hNGFp can affect the pathophysiology of glial cells, in particular microglia. At the same time, she started the line of research on NGF signalling system in painlessness diseases. In 2016 SC became Associate Professor of Physiology at University of Ferrara and Scuola Normale Superiore where she is continues her research on the therapeutic application of hNGFp.