Join Dr Francesco Boccellato, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Oxford, for the fourth talk in our international early detection webinar series on Epithelial barrier homeostasis and response to infections

About the speaker

Dr. Francesco Boccellato studied at “Sapienza” University of Rome. Since being a student, he has been interested in the impact of pathogens in causing cancer in humans. During his PhD in Rome he studied the role of the Epstein Barr virus (EBV) in deregulating microRNAs in diffuse large B cell lymphomas. After his PhD, Francesco moved to Berlin, to the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, were he became interested in the causality of bacterial infection in human cancers. To study the impact of infection on healthy epithelial barriers, Francesco invented a new cultivation system for healthy epithelial cells called the mucosoids. The mucosoids are monolayer of polarised epithelial cells that recapitulate all the functions of an epithelial barrier in the body, including mucus production. Francesco has recently started his independent group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, University of Oxford (UK).