Activities

Dr Zanoni is a researcher of the Gerobiomics & Exposomics Unit at IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) "Dino Amadori" since 2013. Dr’s Zanoni work is focused on preclinical and translational research regarding the cellular and molecular biology of tumor cell and tumor microenvironment. He has been involved in several projects on cancer pharmacology, radiobiology, circulating or tissue biomarkers with prognostic relevance for bone metastasis, studies on cancer-stromal cell interactions, cancer stem cells’ isolation and characterization, and zebrafish model to study brain cancer biology. His research is focused on three-dimensional (3D) models and tumor microenvironment with the goal of understand how the tumor microenvironment, in terms of cellular, physical and biochemical composition, could affect tumor progression and metastatic spread as well as response to therapy. In particular, he is focused on therapy response and resistance mechanisms associated to senescence and inflammation in the tumor microenvironment. He is the author and co-author of 31 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed national and international scientific journals resulting in a H-index of 12 (according to Scopus), and of numerous Abstracts presented at international conferences. He also gained his PhD in Molecular Medicine and Pharmacology at University of Ferrara studying the role of P2X7 receptor and nucleotides (ATP) in GBM progression, inflammation and invasiveness and in correlation with radiotherapy resistance.