Since my student days, I have been fascinated by the origin of mitochondria and their inner processes. For some time I cherished the idea of studying the molecular aspects of mitochondrial protein synthesis and the impact of this process on cell physiology, but such a task cannot be accomplished by a single research group. For that, we established MITGEST, an international consortium of academic and industrial partners to explore mitochondrial gene expression while training 11 doctoral candidates.
Dr Carlo Vascotto is a research group leader at the International Institute of Molecular Mechanisms and Machines of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IMol) and an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Udine (UNIUD), Department of Medicine (DAME).
Dr Vascotto’s research focuses on the role of mitochondria in tumorigenesis and tumour resistance. One line of research is aimed at studying the mitochondrial nature of the DNA repair protein APE1. The studies of Dr Carlo Vascotto are aimed to characterise the molecular mechanisms involved in its translocation and how accumulation within the mitochondrial compartment correlates with tumour resistance. The second line of research is focused on the characterisation of the mitochondrial import pathway MIA. Dr Carlo Vascotto and his group is currently investigating which proteins are involved in the recognition of damaged RNA, and the mechanisms of RNA degradation. Moreover, they are also characterising the signals that change the mitochondrial translation and the cytosolic translation and import of the nuclear-encoded subunits of the respiratory chain to balance the absence of the mitochondrial-encoded subunits.
Besides coordinating the MITGEST project, Dr Vascotto is also supervising DC1 and DC2 and co-supervising DC5 and DC9.
- Sbai O. et al. (2022), RAGE-TXNIP axis drives inflammation in Alzheimer’s by targeting Aβ to mitochondria in microglia. Cell Death Dis. 2022 Apr 4;13(4):302. Vascatto C. is co-author. DOI
- Barchiesi A. et al. (2021), DNA Repair Protein APE1 Degrades Dysfunctional Abasic mRNA in Mitochondria Affecting Oxidative Phosphorylation. J Mol Biol. Vol. 433, Iss.18, 3, 167125. Bazzani V. and Vascotto C. are co-authors. DOI
- Barchiesi A. et al. (2020), Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress Induces Rapid Intermembrane Space/Matrix Translocation of Apurinic/Apyrimidinic Endonuclease 1 Protein through TIM23 Complex. J Mol Biol. Volume 432, Issue 24, 166713. Bazzani V. and Vascotto C. are co-authors. DOI
- Barchiesi A. et al. (2015), Mitochondrial translocation of APE1 relies on the MIA pathway. Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 43, Issue 11, Pages 5451–5464. Vascotto C. is co-author. DOI
- Bazzani V. et al. (2020) Mitochondrial apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 enhances mtDNA repair contributing to cell proliferation and mitochondrial integrity in early stages of hepatocellular carcinoma. BMC Cancer volume 20, Article number: 969. Vascotto C. is co-author. DOI
- Vascatto C. et al. (2014) Functional regulation of the apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 by nucleophosmin: impact on tumor biology. Oncogene 33, 2876–2887. DOI
After the Bachelor of Science in Biology obtained in 2002 at the University of Trieste, Trieste (Italy), Dr. Carlo Vascotto started the PhD course in Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences at the University of Udine under the supervision of Prof. Gianluca Tell. During his PhD, he joined as a visiting student the laboratory of Prof. Veronica Van Heyningen in Edinburgh (UK), at the MRC, Human Genetic Unit (2004) and later the laboratory of Prof. Sankar Mitra in Galveston, TX (USA), at the University of Texas Medical Branch (2006). In 2010, he was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship and joined the laboratory of Prof. Mark Kelley at the Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN (USA). Since 2011 he is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Udine.
For two years (2017-2019) he worked at the Centre of New Technologies of the University of Warsaw, Poland, as Visiting Professor in the Laboratory of Mitochondrial Biogenesis led by Prof. Agnieszka Chacinska.
Besides MITGEST, he is the scientific supervisor of two PhD candidates in the H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019 OLIGOMED project and Principal Investigator in a project supported by the Polish National Science Center (NCN) at the Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine of Warsaw.
