Romina Bevacqua, PhD

Romina Bevacqua, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease, and member of the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute (DOMI) and the Regenerative Biology and Stem Cell Institute, at Mount Sinai. Her research focuses on understanding the regulatory mechanisms governing pancreatic islet cell function and maturation, and integrates modern genetic, cell and developmental biology, biochemical and physiological approaches.

Previously, Dr. Bevacqua was an Instructor and a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Seung Kim, Department of Developmental Biology, at the Stanford University School of Medicine. During her postdoctoral studies, her research focused on the identification of regulators of mature islet function, and included development of primary human islets organoid systems combined with different genetic approaches. Her post-doctoral research produced multiple publications, including first-author studies in Genes & Development and Nature Communications (both in 2021). Her prior doctoral research in Argentina focused on pre-implantation embryo development of large mammals, and used modern methods to target genes in embryos. A full list of her publications can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/romina.bevacqua.1/bibliography/public/ 

The Bevacqua Lab is interested in understanding how transcriptional regulators, non-coding regulatory elements, epigenetic and external signals orchestrate crucial steps in human islet functional maturation and proliferation, and how these steps are mis-regulated in human diseases, particularly type 1 (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Her goal will be to advance and deepen the fundamental understanding of islet regulation and function, and their connection to complex traits associated with diseases like T1D and T2D, knowledge that should inform islet replacement and regeneration therapies.

https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/bevacqualab/