1] Pharmacogenetic
studies;
2] biomarkers of
effect and susceptibility in population exposed to pollutants;
3] Epidemiological studies
in population exposed to ionizing radiation.
The work is carried out in 3 major areas of interest:
pharmacogenetics, molecular biology-mutations and
toxicology.
Pharmacogenetics –Specific aims of this research - area
is to correlate genetic polymorphisms (SNPs) in key genes to drug
efficacy. In particular the interest is focused on the analysis of
SNPs in genes coding for specific drug- metabolising and
transporters enzymes. In the long run, this may enable to identify
one or, most probably, a subset of SNPs with predictive value
allowing to optimise the therapeutic use of drugs.
Molecular biology-mutations - The aim is to identify
genes that underlie cancer susceptibility. A major effort has been
directed to analysis of polymorphisms (SNPs) in cancer-related
genes. For this purpose case-control studies have been carried out
on many cancer, including breast cancer. Moreover, the role of BRAF
and RAS has been elucidated in melanoma and other
neoplasm.
Toxicology - the research activities involve the
identification of environment-related risk factors and studies on
interactions of carcinogenic agents with acquired or inherited host
factors (genetic predisposition) in human cancers. Special emphasis
is given to explore cellular and molecular mechanism of mutagenesis
and cancerogenesis by applying the tools of cytogenetic and
molecular biology to humans. An important field of research is the
development of new biomarkers for the detection of DNA-damage and
of biomarkers for cancer susceptibility which are to be used in
cancer epidemiology, intervention and clinical trials. Special
emphasis is also given to studies in molecular epidemiology,
specifically to characterize the relevance of new genetic
polymorphisms, to explore further susceptibility genes of cancer,
to identify risk groups in the population for prevention and
screening and to further add to our understanding of gene -
environment interactions. Biomarkers have been successfully
employed in studies designed to assess genetic damage induced by
professional exposure to ionizing radiation and urban air
pollution.
