Natalia Tiberti
AH-INF MCA Project title
Acute fever of arboviral aetiology: host-derived immune factors and circulating extracellular vesicles as novel early biomarkers
Who she is
Natalia Tiberti graduated in 2005 in Biotechnology (BSc) at the University of Parma and in 2007 in Medical Biotechnology (MSc) at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). She then started her scientific career as a young researcher in the field of biomarkers for infectious and tropical diseases at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she obtained her PhD in 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Charles Sanchez studying biomarkers for human African trypanosomiasis.
From 2014 to 2016, she worked as a post-doc in the group of Prof. Valery Combes at the University of Sydney and University of Technology Sydney (Sydney, Australia) supported by two mobility fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to investigate extracellular vesicles in cerebral malarial. Thanks to a SNSF return fellowships, in 2017 she returned to Geneva (Switzerland) where she translated her new expertise in the field of extracellular vesicles to the study of human African trypanosomiasis, showing their important role in the neuropathogenesis.
Since 2018, Dr Tiberti is principal investigator within the Department of Infectious, Tropical Diseases and Microbiology (DITM) of the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital (Negrar di Valpolicella, Verona).
What he does
Since the beginning of her scientific career, Dr Tiberti has been interested in the study of infectious and tropical diseases of clinical interest. Her current translational research at DITM focuses on the investigation of biomarkers and of the mechanisms of interaction between the human host and different pathogens. In her projects, she tries to combine applied research, to improve current diagnostic and prognostic strategies through the direct investigation of clinical samples and basic research, using in vitro models to discern the mechanisms of host-pathogen interaction. Her scientific interests focus on two main research lines: 1) the investigation of biomarkers for acute febrile illness and 2) the study of the mechanisms of host-pathogen interaction in human strongyloidiasis.
News from the Lab
One of the main objective of Dr Tiberti is to identify novel tools to contribute to achieve a prompt diagnosis of acute febrile illness (AFI) aetiology. Arboviruses (e.g., West Nile and Dengue viruses) are causes of AFI of particular concern, as their diffusion and clinical relevance is increasing worldwide. By studying the host response elicited by arboviruses during febrile episodes, Dr Tiberti aims at identifying fever triage markers that would be particularly helpful to improve patients’ management, to promptly detect and control autochthonous outbreaks of imported viruses, to monitor the epidemiology of these infections on the territory and to avoid the inappropriate use of antibiotics. In this scenario, extracellular vesicles are of particular interest and Dr Tiberti is already unravelling their potential both as AFI markers and as new tools to decipher the mechanisms of host-pathogen interaction.