Tumors, to Tor Vergata scientist Simona Ranallo Erc Starting Grant 2024

Simona Ranallo, 37, from Rome, currently a researcher at the Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, is the only one in the university to win an Erc Starting Grant 2024, the 1.5 million euro funding that Europe grants to the best lines of research every year, for the Co-Trans-Net project ‘Synthetic nucleic acid co-transcriptional networks as diagnostic and therapeutic tools’.

Her studies for cancer research – a note reports – led her to become interested in the molecular interactions that occur inside the cell and in the human body. “What has most stimulated my curiosity – explains Ranallo – has always been trying to improve the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, including cancer, starting from the study of how life works. Through highly controlled processes, the cell is able to read the information contained in our DNA and translate it into functional molecules, such as RNA and proteins, which play key roles in the regulation of vital functions and health. And it is precisely from this concept that the idea of ​​Co-Trans-Net (acronym for Cotranscriptional networks) was born: to develop systems based on synthetic genes that, in response to specific tumor biomarkers, are able to produce functional RNA molecules that can generate a diagnostic signal or have therapeutic functions. In this way, Co-Trans-Net aims to generate a new class of theranostic tools that, through the use of nanotechnologies, integrate diagnosis and therapy in such a way that they can be obtained simultaneously”.

“The possibility of producing an RNA-based drug in response to the presence of specific tumor biomarkers represents the true innovation of Co-Trans-Net – Ranallo underlines – In this way, it would be possible to think of producing a drug ‘on demand’ when the level of a biomarker exceeds its specific physiological range, thus becoming a sort of alarm and representing an early treatment possibility. It would thus be possible to administer the dose of drug to be administered based on the specific needs of each individual patient, correlated to the stage of their disease”. Ranallo also highlights the peculiar characteristics and versatility of the project: “Co-Trans-Net, in addition to ensuring constant monitoring and personalized therapeutic treatment, represents an innovative diagnostic tool in which, quickly and without the need for laboratory equipment, but using only a smartphone, it will be possible to measure the level of tumor biomarkers in the blood of patients with high precision, just like the glucometer used by diabetic patients. The innovations proposed by Co-Trans-Net in the diagnostic and therapeutic field represent important progress towards personalized and precision medicine”.

The Co-Trans-Net project has a duration of 5 years and is among the 44% of Starting Grants 2024 won by female researchers, a percentage that has been constantly increasing in recent years according to the European Research Council. The Ercs Starting Grant, which for the current year has been able to count on a total funding of approximately 780 million euros, supports young researchers at the beginning of their careers in their cutting-edge research.

Simona Ranallo – the note reports – graduated in chemistry at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and obtained a doctorate in Chemical Sciences here, carrying out her research in the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry of the Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies. During her PhD, she was a Visiting Researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara (USA) and the Université de Montréal (Canada). She obtained post-doc funding from the Umberto Veronesi Foundation to continue her research on cancer and in 2018 she was the winner of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post Doctoral Global Fellowship, funded by the European Community. Thanks to this funding, she carried out 2 years of research at the University of California Santa Barbara and then returned in the last year of research for the funding at the Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies of Rome Tor Vergata, where she currently works as a researcher in the research group coordinated by Professor Francesco Ricci.