Montserrat Climent graduated in Biotechnology at the University of Vic (Spain) in 2009. She was enrolled as graduate student at Virginia Tech (USA) from 2009 to 2012, studying the role of PPARγ in different inflammatory pathologies. Afterwards, she moved to Italy where she got her PhD in 2015 in Molecular Medicine at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, under supervision of Prof. Marco Tafani, in collaboration with Humanitas Research Institute under the supervision of Prof. Gianluigi Condorelli. The main focused of the PhD was the study of non-coding RNAs as communication molecules in vascular pathologies.
Academic honors, awards and prices
- 2024 PI Cariplo-Telethon Alliance GJC2023 (n. GJC23034; Italian Grant for rare diseases. For 2 years, 250.000 euros).
- 2018 Co-PI Ricerca Finalizzata GR2016 (#GR-2016-02364327; Italian Grant for young researchers financed for 3 years, 450.000 euros).
- 2018 AACR-SIC Scholar-in-Training Award to attend the AACR Meeting 2018 (1200 euros).
- 2017 Premio Minerva alla Ricerca 2017 from the Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” (1000 euros)
- 2015 Awarded FIRC Abroad 2015 (rif. 18343) Principal investigator.
- 2015 EVBO Young Investigator Award for the best oral presentation at ESM-EVBO Joint Meeting 2015. 3-6th of June 2015. Pisa, Italy.
- 2015 ESM Travel Award in recognition for the abstract at ESM-EVBO Joint Meeting 2015.
- 2011-2012 Awarded student fellowship as Graduate Teaching Associate (GTA) at Virginia Tech, teaching “Principles of biology Laboratory” from 10-08-2011 to 09-05-2012.
- 2010-2011 Awarded student fellowship as Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) at the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, USA) from 10-08-2010 to 09-08-2011.
Her first postdoctoral experience (2015-2016) was at San Raffaele Hospital in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory (Milan, Italy) studying the crosstalk between neurons and blood vessels with Dr. Dario Bonanomi where she had the opportunity to perform a research collaboration (3 months) with Prof. Pfaff in the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (San Diego, USA). In 2016, she moved to the Center for genomic science of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia IIT@SEMM (Milan) with Dr. Francesco Nicassio, studying the role of ncRNAs in breast cancer. Since 2019, she moved back to Humanitas Research Hospital in the Vascular Epigenetic Lab with Prof. Leonardo Elia where she is working on understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in a variety of cardiovascular pathologies as well as evaluating how optical-activated materials might modulate vascular response to injuries to develop therapeutic approaches. Since 2023, Montserrat Climent is Assistant Professor (RTDa) in Biochemistry at Humanitas University.
- Therapeutic potential of EVs: targeting cardiovascular diseases. Laura Francés J., Pagiatakis C., di Mauro V., Climent M*. Biomedicines, June 2023. doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11071907. * corresponding author.
- rs41291957 controls miR-143 and miR-145 expression and impacts coronary artery disease risk. Hall IF*, Climent M*, Viviani Anselmi C, Papa L, Tragante V, Farina FM, Kleber ME, März W, Biguori C, Condorelli G and Elia L. EMBO Molecular Medicine. August 2021. DOI: 10.15252/emmm.202114060. * equal contribution
- MicroRNA and ROS Crosstalk in Cardiac and Pulmonary Diseases. Climent M, Viggiani G, Chen YW, Coulis G, Castaldi A. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Jun 19;21(12):4370. doi: 10.3390/ijms21124370. PMID: 32575472; PMCID: PMC7352701.
- Circ_LRP6, a smooth muscle cell-enriched circular RNA, acting as a sponge in regulating miRNA-145 function. Hall IF*, Climent M*, Quintavalle M, Farina FM, Schorn T, Zani S, Carullo P, Kunderfranco P, Civilini E, Condorelli G, Elia L.. Circ Res. 2019 Feb 15;124(4):498-510. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.314240. PMID: 30582454. * Equal contribution
- TGFβ triggers miR-143/145 transfer from smooth muscle cells to endothelial cells, thereby modulating vessel stabilization. Climent M., Quintavalle M., Miragoli M., Chen J., Condorelli G., and Elia L. Circ Res. 2015 May 22;116(11):1753-64. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.116.305178. Epub 2015 Mar 23. PMID: 25801897.