Giovanna Caderni

Biography

Giovanna Caderni ( Florence, Italy, 1955), graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Florence, maxima cum laude in 1979. She has been research fellow of the National Research Council and Research Assistant at the University of Florence since 1990 . She is now Associate Professor in Pharmacology (Pharmacy Faculty of the University of Florence) working at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Florence. In 1986-1987, as postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto Canada, she worked on colon experimental pathology and on the effect of dietary variations on colon carcinogenesis. She has worked on the genotoxic effects of food mutagens on mammalian cells and intestinal mucosa. She studied the effect of dietary variations on colon carcinogenesis in experimental animals and humans, demonstrating that dietary carbohydrates affect colon proliferation in rats and humans and colon carcinogenesis in rats. She has also been interested in the biochemical and genetic characterization of aberrant crypt foci, purported preneoplastic lesions in the colon of rats and humans. More recently, she has made significant contributions to the field of preneoplastic lesions in colon cancer, describing for the first time, mucin depleted foci (MDF) dysplastic lesions in the colon of carcinogen-treated rats demonstrating Their correlation with carcinogenesis and their usefulness as biomarkers in short-term carcinogenesis experiments. She has been actively involved in CNR projects (FATMA "Quality of Environment and Health") and EC granted programs (AIR2-CT94-0933, PL 95-0653, QLRT-1999-00505), being responsible for the experimental part and coordinating Clinical studies on dietary and biochemical determinants of cancer risk in humans. She has been the coordinator for the University of Florence of the EC granted SYNCAN program (QLK1-1999-00346) on the effect of Synbiotics on colon cancer prevention in humans and experimental animals. Recently, received two consecutive AICR grants (American Institute for Cancer Research 2005-2007, and 2009-2011) to study and characterize MDF, as preneoplastic lesions in colon carcinogenesis. The research group encompasses several types of expertise (experimental pathology, dietary studies, experimental carcinogenesis, molecular genetics - see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Caderni%20G).

Research Interest

Scientific interests are mainly directed at the study of intestinal cancerogenesis with particular attention to the early phases of this process and the influence of diet components.