Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award winner

Elena Rainero

Elena Rainero took her degree in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (3+2 year programme) in July 2006, with a score of 110/110 with honours, at University of Piemonte Orientale "A. Avogadro", Novara (Italy). Her thesis project was the study of the role of diacylglycerol kinase a on HGF-induced focal adhesion remodelling in epithelial cells. She then entered into the Human Biotechnology Ph.D. programme in November 2006 at University of Piemonte Orientale "A. Avogadro", Novara (Italy), and is now in her third and last year. During her Ph.D., she had been working on the role of diacylglycerol kinase a in epithelial cell migration, focusing in particular on the early events upon growth factor stimulation, such as lamellipodia and ruffle formation and Rac activation (Chianale et al., Mol. Biol. Cell., 2007; Chianale, Rainero et al., 2009, submitted for publication). From November 3rd, 2008 to March 8th, 2009, thanks to an EMBO short-term fellowship, she attended Dr. Jim Norman’s laboratory at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow (UK), where she investigated the role of diacylglycerol kinase a in Rab coupling protein (RCP)-mediated integrin trafficking and cancer cell migration in a 3D microenvironment (Rainero et al., paper in preparation).