Nicolo Ilacqua
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Born in Italy, Nicolò graduated in Molecular Biology from the Università degli Studi di Padova, where he joined Luca Scorrano's lab and discovered the fascinating world of organelle contact sites. His interest in this field led him to pursue a PhD in Canada, teaming up with Luca Pellegrini at Université Laval in Quebec. During this time, Nicolò discovered the wrappER, a curved rough-endoplasmic reticulum that wraps around mitochondria and peroxisomes in liver hepatocytes, regulating the cellular lipid flux. This experience sparked his interest in peroxisomes and motivated him to join Dr. Heidi McBride as a postdoctoral fellow. He is currently investigating the early stages of peroxisome biogenesis, aiming to uncover the signaling mechanisms that regulate this process and contribute to the pathophysiology of Zellweger syndrome.
Expertise: contact sites, lipid metabolism, peroxisome biogenesis