Gabriella Piazzesi

Biography

• Born in Florence on March 29th, 1954.  • Degree in Biological Sciences (110/110 cum laude) on February 16th, 1978, University of Florence, Italy.  • 1981-1983: Graduate fellow at the Italian National Research Council at the Laboratory of Cardiac Eletrophysiology, Department of Preclinical and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Florence.  • 1983-1987: Graduate fellow (PhD student), Department of Physiological Sciences, University of Florence  • 1985: Research fellow at the laboratory of Professor Caspar Rüegg, Physiologisches Institut, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. The period in Prof. Rüegg's lab was dedicated to learning the technique of freeze-dry skinning of muscle fibers.  • 1988: PhD in Physiology • Award from the Italian Society of Physiology for Young Physiologists in 1989.  • Researcher (1989), Associate Professor (1992), Professor (2000) of Physiology at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences, University of Florence.  • Visiting scientist at Prof. Andrew F. Huxley's Laboratory, Physiological Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, for periods of one month per year in the years 1991-1995. The collaboration allowed to improve the techniques for single fiber mechanics with length control at sarcomere level.

Research Interest

The scientific activity concerns the study of the molecular mechanism of muscle contraction with high resolution mechanical and structural methods on single cell and is documented by numerous publications on high impact multidisciplinary journals (Nature, Cell, Nature Structural Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America) and on most relevant journals in the specific fields of Physiology and Biophysics (Journal of Physiology, Biophysical Journal).