Alessandra Castaldi - Freelance Cardiology Consultant in California, United States

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Hire Dr. Alessandra C.

United States

Profile Summary

I am a PhD in Molecular Medicine with an interest in gene expression regulation. In the last 10 years my studies have been focused on skeletal and cardiac muscle physiology and pathology. 
I am interested in cellular signaling and in particular in the regulation of gene expression by microRNAs and GPCR signalling pathways. I have experience in manuscript and grant writing.

Laboratory skills and techniques mastered:
- Cellular biology
Cardiac progenitor cells, immortalized cell lines, neonatal rat ventricular myocytes, isolation and primary culture of mouse neonatal cardiomyocytes, isolation and primary culture of mouse myocytes from skeletal muscle, transient transfection, adenoviral infection, luciferase assay, proliferation assay, cell death assay, induction of cardiac lineage markers in cardiac progenitor cells, use of agonist/antagonist drugs for GPCR signaling pathways.
- Molecular biology
Techniques for the study of gene and protein expression (including western, northern and southern blot), gene cloning, site-directed mutagenesis, qPCR (Taqman and SYBR green), mutation screening based on DNA sequencing and DHPLC, microarray, Ago2- and miR- pull down assays, gene/microRNA silencing and overexpression.
- Imaging
Immunoistochemestry, immunofluorescence (optic and confocal microscopy), in situ hybridization.
- In vivo
Mouse handling, dissection of adult and neonatal cardiac and skeletal muscles (mouse), design of in vivo experiments (i.e. transverse aortic constriction – TAC), maintainment of transgenic (constitutive and inducible), knock-out and knock-in mouse lines.
- Ex vivo
Experimental design of ex vivo Ischemia/Reperfusion on mouse heart.
- Bioinformatics
MicroRNA targets prediction with public available software (PITA, PicTar, Miranda, MirBase, and similar), knowledge and use of databases (i.e. NCBI, ENSEMBL, Genome Browser, Genecards and similar). Comfortable with Software for broad audience (Excel, Office, Photoshop) and for scientific audience (Prism, Vector NTI, Image J), as well as lab equipment–related software.

Subject Matter Expertise

Services

Writing
Consulting
Data & AI
Product Development

Work Experience

Research Associate

Keck School of Medicine of USC

January 2017 - Present

Postdoctoral fellow

University of California San Diego

May 2014 - December 2016

Postdoc

University of California San DIego (UCSD)

April 2014 - August 2016

Postdoc

Humanitas Clinical Institute (Milan, Italy)

January 2012 - April 2014

Postdoctoral fellow

Humanitas Research Hospital

January 2012 - March 2014

PhD student

University of Milan (Italy)

January 2009 - December 2011

Research fellow

Council for National Research - CNR (Milan, Italy)

July 2008 - December 2008

Research fellow

Istituto di Tecnologie Biomediche Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

July 2008 - December 2008

Research fellow

Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM)

March 2008 - July 2008

Telethon fellow

Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine

March 2008 - June 2008

Internsship pre-Master Degree

Telethon Istitute of Genetics and Medicine - TIGEM (Naples, Italy)

July 2006 - February 2008

Internship pre-Bachelor Degree

University of Naples Federico II

March 2005 - October 2005

Education

PhD in Molecular Medicine

University of Milan, Italy

January 2009 - February 2012

Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine

Universita degli Studi di Milano Facolta di Scienze e Tecnologie

January 2009 - February 2012

MSc in Molecular Biology

Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

November 2005 - October 2008

Master in Molecular Biology

University of Naples Federico II, Italy

September 2005 - February 2008

Bachelor in Biology - Curriculum Molecular Biology

University of Naples Federico II, Italy

September 2002 - October 2005

BSc in Biology

Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

September 2002 - October 2005

Certifications

Certification details not provided.

Publications

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Alessandra Castaldi, Montserrat Climent, Giacomo Viggiani, Ya-Wen Chen, Gerald Coulis (2020). MicroRNA and ROS Crosstalk in Cardiac and Pulmonary Diseases . International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Castaldi, A., Dodia, R.M., Orogo, A.M., Zambrano, C.M., Najor, R.H., Gustafsson, Å.B., Heller Brown, J., Purcell, N.H.(2017). Decline in cellular function of aged mouse c-kit<sup>+</sup>cardiac progenitor cells . Journal of Physiology. 595. (19). p. 6249-6262.

Miragoli, M., Sanchez-Alonso, J.L., Bhargava, A., Wright, P.T., Sikkel, M., Schobesberger, S., Diakonov, I., Novak, P., Castaldi, A., Cattaneo, P., et al.(2016). Microtubule-Dependent Mitochondria Alignment Regulates Calcium Release in Response to Nanomechanical Stimulus in Heart Myocytes . Cell Reports. 14. (1). p. 140-151.

Castaldi, A., Chesini, G.P., Taylor, A.E., Sussman, M.A., Brown, J.H., Purcell, N.H.(2016). Sphingosine 1-phosphate elicits RhoA-dependent proliferation and MRTF-A mediated gene induction in CPCs . Cellular Signalling. 28. (8). p. 871-879.

Castaldi, A., Zaglia, T., Di Mauro, V., Carullo, P., Viggiani, G., Borile, G., Di Stefano, B., Schiattarella, G.G., Gualazzi, M.G., Elia, L., et al.(2014). MicroRNA-133 modulates the β<inf>1</inf>-adrenergic receptor transduction cascade . Circulation Research. 115. (2). p. 273-283.

Yamamoto, D.L., Vitiello, C., Zhang, J., Gokhin, D.S., Castaldi, A., Coulis, G., Piaser, F., Filomena, M.C., Eggenhuizen, P.J., Kunderfranco, P., et al.(2013). The nebulin SH3 domain is dispensable for normal skeletal muscle structure but is required for effective active load bearing in mouse . Journal of Cell Science. 126. (23). p. 5477-5489.

Bonnal, R.J.P., Severgnini, M., Castaldi, A., Bordoni, R., Iacono, M., Trimarco, A., Torella, A., Piluso, G., Aurino, S., Condorelli, G., et al.(2010). Reliable resequencing of the human dystrophin locus by universal long polymerase chain reaction and massive pyrosequencing . Analytical Biochemistry. 406. (2). p. 176-184.