Elisa Vicenzi

Elisa Vicenzi earned her degree in Pharmacy in 1980 at the University of Ferrara. In 1981 she moved to the Mario Negri Institute in Milan and in 1985 obtained a specialist diploma in Pharmacological Research. In 1996 she moved to the United States to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology directed by Malcolm A. Martin, taking up a position as visiting associate.

In 1993 she returned to Italy at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute, where she worked as a senior researcher at the AIDS Immunopathogenesis Unit directed by Professor Guido Poli until 2005. Since 2006 she has directed the Viral Pathogens and Biosafety Unit. Her research focuses on TRIM22, an interferon-induced restriction factor that inhibits HIV and influenza A virus infection. Since 2017 she has extended her interests to the study of Zika virus, and in particular to the cellular mechanisms the virus uses to induce neural progenitor death. She is the author of 97 scientific papers and 30 reviews and book chapters.