Education
2015: Joint PhD in Neuroscience and Brain Technology between the University of Genoa and Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Italy.
2011: Master’s degree in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, University of Genoa, Italy.
2009: Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology, University of Genoa, Italy.
Teaching appointments
2025-2026 Lecturer on “Mental Health” module, MED school at Humanitas University, Milan, Italy
2023-2026 Lecturer on “Neuropharmacology” module, MEDTEC school at Humanitas University, Milan, Italy.
2020-2022 Lecturer and practical demonstrator on “Applications of fluorescence microscopy to study synaptic transmission” module, MSc Clinical Neuroscience program at University College London, UK.
2019-2025 Lecturer on “Basic Neuroscience and Investigation of Nervous system” module, MSc Clinical Neuroscience programme. University College London, UK.
2014 Teaching assistant on “Neurobiology and Neurophysiology” module, MSc Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology program. University of Genoa, Italy.
Academic background
2021-2025: High Profile Postdoctoral Fellow (HiPPo) in the laboratory of Pharmacology and Brain Pathology of the Prof. Michela Matteoli, Fondazione Humanitas per la Ricerca and IRCCS Humanitas, Milan, Italy.
2021-2025: Honorary Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Kirill Volynski at the Dept. of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, UCL Queen Square-Institute of Neurology, University College London (UCL), London, UK.
2016-2021: Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Kirill Volynski at the Dept. of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, UCL Queen Square-Institute of Neurology, University College London (UCL), London, UK.
2015-2016: Postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Fabio Benfenati at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genoa, Italy.
Academic honors, awards and prices
04/2024 Winner as Co-PI of the AirAlzh grant for Young Researchers 2024 – AGYR 2024 to investigate “Alzheimer risk factor TREM2 as a sex-dependent regulator of vessel-associated microglia”.
04/2024 Recipient of a scholarship to attend ESM2024, Berlin, GM.
05/2022 Recipient of a scholarship to attend ESM2022, Coimbra, PT.
2021-present Recipient of an Associate Fellowship for High Education Academy (AFHEA) of Distinction in Teaching and Supervision in University College London.
2021-present Recipient of a High-Profile Postdoctoral Program Fellowship from Humanitas Research Foundation (first ranked and fully founded), Milan, Italy.
10/2017 Recipient of a Travel grant from Guarantors of Brain to attend SFN meeting 2017.
09/2016 Recipient of a Seal of Excellence for high quality project ranking in the H2020-MSCA-IF-2016, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
Dr. Erica Tagliatti aims to unravel how immune and nervous system synergy impacts on postnatal neurodevelopment and how such interactions predispose to neurodegeneration in adulthood. To achieve that, Erica combines in vitro and ex-vivo live-imaging, metabolic assays and electrophysiology to uncover the interplay between microglia and neuronal cells in both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions.
- Tagliatti E*, Desiato G*, Mancinelli S, Bizzotto M, Gagliani MC, HernándezSoto R, Cugurra A, Poliseno P, Faggiani E, Miotto M, Argüello RJ, Filipello F, Cortese K, Morini R, Lodato S, Matteoli M. Microglial TREM2 shapes neuronal bioenergetics during development. Immunity 2024 doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2023.12.002.
- Abela L*, Gianfrancesco L*, Tagliatti E, Rossignoli G, Barwick K, Zourray C, Budinger D, Ng J, Counsell J, Simpson A, Pearson A, Edvardson S, Elpeleg O, Brodsky FM, Lignani G, Barral S, Kurian MA. An iPSC-derived neuronal model of DNAJC6 parkinsonism reveals neurodevelopmental and synaptic vesicle recycling defects, amenable to gene therapy. Brain 2024 doi: 10.1093/brain/awae020.
- Mendonça PRF, Tagliatti E, Langley H, Kotzadimitriou D, Zamora C, Timofeeva J, Volynski KE. Asynchronous glutamate exocytosis is enhanced in low release probability synapses and is widely dispersed across the active zones. Nat Comm. 2022.
- Tagliatti E, Bello OD, Mendonça PRF, Kotzadimitriou D, Nicholson E, Coleman J, Timofeeva J, Rothman JE, Krishnakumar SS and Volynski KE. Synaptotagmin 1 oligomers clamp and regulate different modes of neurotransmitter release. PNAS 2020 Jan.
- Tagliatti E*, Fadda M*, Falace A, Benfenati F, Fassio A. Arf6 regulates the cycling and the readily releasable pool of synaptic vesicles at hippocampal synapse. Elife. 2016 Jan.