Laura
Fumagalli

Dr. Fumagalli earned her degree in Biology with a specialization in Biomedical Science from the University of Milano, where she developed a strong interest in the brain’s complexity and the mechanisms behind neurodegeneration. As an undergraduate, she worked in Prof. Elena Cattaneo’s lab, studying Huntington’s disease pathology using patient-derived stem cell neurons. Dr. Fumagalli then moved to Belgium to deepen her research on C9orf72-related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in the laboratory of Prof. Philip Van Damme at VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. During her PhD, she made a key contribution by uncovering a novel pathological mechanism in C9orf72 ALS/FTD, showing that disease-associated arginine-rich peptides bind to microtubules and motor proteins, disrupting cargo transport in iPSC-derived motor neurons. Recognizing that C9orf72 mutations also affect microglia, Dr. Fumagalli joined Dr. Renzo Mancuso’s lab at the VIB Center for Molecular Neurology, University of Antwerp, in 2021. As a postdoctoral researcher, she now uses an innovative human brain-like model to study how C9orf72 mutations alter microglial function and contribute to disease progression.