Who we are
Scientific supervisor: Prof. Costanza Lagrasta, Confirmed Researcher.
Info and contacts: Costanza Lagrasta, tel. 0521/033458; e-mail: costanzaannamaria.lagrasta@unipr.it;
Affiliated Staff:
Where we are
Rooms 025 and 001 (ground floor) U.O. Pathology Anatomy Pav.20 - Via Gramsci 14 - 43126 Parma.
What we do
Main lines of research:
- Isolation, amplification, and characterization of primary cells from healthy human lung tissue and tumor.
- Isolation, amplification, and characterization of endothelial cells derived from human placenta, artery, and umbilical cord vein
- Isolation, amplification, and characterization of different commercial cell lines.
- In vitro and ex-vivo study of the tumor microenvironment and its pathogenetic role in the development and progression of human lung cancer (non-small cell carcinoma, NSCLC) and Human Idiopathic Fibrosis (IPF).
- Research of the mechanisms underlying the development of Pulmonary Interstitiopathies of as yet unknown etiology on human and murine lung tissue samples.
- Morphometric assessment of cardiac and pulmonary vascular remodeling in murine and human models of induced pulmonary hypertension.
- In vitro and ex-vivo study of the cytotoxic effect of anticancer drugs.
- Study of chromosomal abnormalities such as deletions, translocations, amplifications by FISH analysis on tumor cells, aimed at identifying prognostic indices for the use of target therapy.
Applied Methodologies:
- Primary cell culture setup from murine models and human tissue.
- Human and murine cell cocultures setup.
- Cell phenotype selection by immunomagnetic microbeads.
- Study of anticancer drugs on primary cell cultures and human cell lines.
- Histo/cytochemical staining and immunohistochemistry/immunocytochemistry methods with optical and fluorescence detection on paraffin-embedded preparations and on cells.
- Floral Hybridization in Situ (FISH) techniques.
- Qualitative/quantitative colorimetric tests of cell viability and use of multiwell plate reading instruments (spectrophotometer).
- Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of cytological and histological preparations with optical, confocal and fluorescence microscopes.
Main instrumentation provided:
- Two-station C.A.M. Bio-VESTA II Laminar Flow Hood.
- Nuaire NU-5510E incubator
- Hettich Universal 320R refrigerated centrifuge.
- Leica ThermoBrite hybridizer.
- Olympus CK40 inverted optical microscope with Olympus DP21 digital camera
- Olympus BH-2 three-station optical microscope.
- Olympus BX60 optical and fluorescence microscope with QICAM digital camera.
- Leica DMI 6000B Optical and Inverted Fluorescence Microscope with Leica DFC350 FX digital camera.
- Nikon NI-E Fluorescence Microscope with Nikon DS-Qi2 digital camera and image analysis system..
- Two-station Operative Optical Microscope.
Keywords Cell Cultures, Immunohistochemistry, Microscopy, Morphometry, FISH.
