Cecilia Mei

Cecilia is a final year-PhD student in Translational Medicine at the University of Milan (Italy) studying Riboflavin Transporter Deficiency (RTD) a rare childhood onset neurodegenerative disease, affecting motor neurons and other parts of the CNS system. Cecilia is also developing AAV gene therapy to treat RTD.

She joined Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero’s lab in November 2023 as a visiting student to study retinal and spinal cord organoids to further understand the patho-mechanism leading to the disease in the retina and motor neurons. She aims to translate the promising gene therapy results obtained in the 2D iPSCs-derived motoneurons to more complex organoid models. 

Cecilia has been working with iPSCs since 2019 and is very passionate about science and wonderful world of stem cells. For this reason, she was thrilled to join the Stem Cell Medicine group to get further insights into RTD.

Having just arrived from Italy, she really enjoys Australia and all the wonderful beaches and nature, she loves bushwalking and swimming, and she hopes to surf once the fear of jellyfish and shark is over.