Daniela Latorre, 2024

Career Development Award Project Title

“Dissecting the autoreactive T cell immunity in human inflammatory peripheral neuropathies”, 2024

Who she is

Daniela Latorre is an immunologist specialized in human T cell immunity. After obtaining her PhD in Immunology at “Sapienza” University of Rome in Italy, she moved to Switzerland to perform her Postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Federica Sallusto first at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona and later at the ETH Zurich. In 2020, supported by various national and international career research grants, including the prestigious PRIMA grant from the Swiss National Foundation, she become Group Leader of the Human Neuroimmunology laboratory at the Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich. In 2024, she was awarded the Career Development Award, which allowed her to establish her independent research laboratory at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan returning to Italy after many years abroad.

What she does

Daniela Latorre’s research focuses on human immunology, with a particular emphasis on T cell immunity in immune-mediated neurological disorders and microbial infections. Her pioneering postdoctoral work provided the first solid evidence of the autoimmune basis of narcolepsy, a rare brain disorder, reshaping perspectives in sleep-related disease research (Latorre D & Kallweit U et al., Nature, 2018). This research earned her several prizes, including the well-renowned Pfizer Research Prize (2020), the Young Scientist Award from EU-NN (2019) and the Best International Young Researcher on Narcolepsy award from AIN (2018). As an independent Group Leader, Dr. Latorre and her team recently uncovered the involvement of autoreactive T cell immunity in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome, marking a significant breakthrough in the field (Súkeniková L & Mallone A et al., Nature, 2024). With the support of the Career Development Award, Dr. Latorre employs cutting-edge experimental tools to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying a broad spectrum of inflammatory peripheral neuropathies. This research aims to deepen our understanding of disease immunopathology and drive biomedical advancements.

Beyond her scientific achievements, she is widely recognized as a mentor and advocate for early-career researchers. She co-founded and served as the first elected president of the Swiss Young Immunology Society (SYIS), where her leadership was instrumental in fostering scientific exchange, networking, and visibility for early-career immunologists in Switzerland and across Europe. Additionally, she serves as a mentor in both Swiss and Italian postdoctoral mentoring programs and actively contributes to science outreach initiatives.

Latorre’s research is supported by the Armenise Harvard Foundation and the European Research Council Consolidator Grant