Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases.

Who we are

Scientific supervisor: Prof. Alessandra Dei Cas; alessandra.deicas@unipr.it - 0521 033307

Technical supervisor:Dr. Valentina Spigoni valentina.spigoni@unipr.it - 0521 906681

Info and contact: email: valentina.spigoni@unipr.it tel: 0521 906681

Affiliated Personnel:

- Prof. Barbara Altieri (Associate Professor); barbara.altieri@unipr.it
- Prof. Federica Fantuzzi (Researcher); feedrica.fantuzzi@unipr.it - 0521 033314
- Dr.ssa Anna D'Antuono (Research Fellow); anna.dantuono@unipr.it - 0521 033314
- Dr. Francesca Bagnaresi (PhD student); francesca.bagnaresi@unipr.it - 0521 033314
- Dr. Elisabetta Giordano (PhD student); elisabetta.giordano@unipr.it - 0521 906681

Where we are

At the Maggiore Hospital in Parma, Pavilion 26 (formerly Cinica Medica), mezzanine floor (corridor on the right)

What we do

Main Lines of Research

The Laboratory of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases is concerned with studying:
- the environmental, genetic, and pathophysiological basis of diabetes mellitus and associated conditions (obesity, insulin resistance, beta-cell dysfunction);
- innovative pharmacological therapies of diabetes mellitus;
- the pathophysiology and molecular basis of atherogenesis in diabetes mellitus;
- vascular (dys)function;
- immunometabolism
- Molecular bases of cortico-adrenal carcinomas and development of innovative drug therapies
- Pathogenetic mechanisms of hormone hypersecretion in adrenal tumors
- Molecular bases of hypercortisolism

Applied methodologies

- Generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from peripheral blood and their differentiation into pancreatic β-cells;
- Primary cultures of human cells, including endothelial (and progenitor) cells, monocytes, and macrophages;
- Cell lines of secreting and non-secreting cortico-surrenal carcinomas
- Monocyte-macrophage differentiation and polarization assays;
- Phenotypic (cytofluorimetry) and functional (glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, migration assays, cell viability and apoptosis) analyses;
- Gene (qPCR) and protein (ELISA, Western blot) expression analysis;
- Immunofluorescence and cell metabolism characterization by microcalorimetry;
- Quantification of circulating endothelial and progenitor cells, and immunologic profiling of monocyte, dendritic, and lymphocyte subpopulations by cytofluorimetry;
- Transcriptomic (RNA-seq) analysis of circulating cells (monocytes and lymphocytes).

Main instrumentation provided

- Laminar flow hood (for cell cultures) and Chemistry hood
- Incubators for cell cultures
- Phase inversion microscopes
- Refrigerator, freezer and ultrafreezer (-80°C)
- Centrifuge and microcentrifuge
- Analytical scales
- PHmeter
- Thermocycler for real time PCR
- XFp Seahorse (deployed at the Hospital Medicine Tower)
- XFpro Seahorse (96-well) for the study of cell metabolism
- Cytation 1 (cellular imaging reader and multimodal microplate imaging)
- Scanner for microarray analysis (located at Core Lab Pad. 15)
- Hybridization oven for microarrays