Alessia Baccarini, PhD

Dr. Alessia Baccarini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences.  She trained in molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Rome and Harvard Medical School; where she focused on the role of YAP in DNA damage and cancer.  She joined Mount Sinai in 2008, and led studies that uncovered one of the first known factors to control microRNA turnover and decay.  She subsequently helped lead work on the first microRNA decoy and sensor vector libraries, and developed a new high-throughput approach, called Sensor-seq, which enables genome-wide measure of microRNA activity. She used the microRNA sensor library to determine the quantitative relationship between a microRNA’s concentration and its capacity for target suppression.  These studies led to the finding that microRNAs only function above a threshold concentration, and that there is widespread post-transcriptional regulation of microRNA activity.  She is now investigating the functions of non-coding RNAs in cancer biology.