Dr Paola Scaruffi has a 16-years long standing experience in molecular biology of neuroblastic tumors. Her experience spans from basic to translational research. During her research, she addressed the genetic characterization of human neuroblastoma cells in view of the identification of novel molecular prognostic markers. In 2000, as winner of a fellowship of the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), Dr Scaruffi spent 1 year at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (USA) in order to get the theoretical and practical basis of DNA microarrays. Since 2000 she addressed her research to high-throughput technologies, as quantitative PCR, and both “in-house” and commercial high-resolution microarrays.

Presently, Dr Scaruffi is working at the Center of Physiopathology of Human Reproduction, “San Martino” Hospital in Genoa. She is the responsible for the Embryology laboratory of the Center and she performs laboratory steps from oocyte pick-up to embryo transfer.

Dr Scaruffi is author of 38 scientific publications on peer-reviewed journals and of 65 communications to National and International congresses.

Category of “EMBRYO VIABILITY ASSESSMENT”

Project: Cell DNA-Free test as a non-invasive biomarker for assessing embryo viability.

Embryo selection for transfer into the uterus is one of the major challenges in assisted reproduction technology (ART) to achieve the best balance between reducing the risk of multiple gestation and maximizing the probability of pregnancy.

Dr Scaruffi’s winning project - Cell-free DNA: a non-invasive test for assessing embryo quality - involves the development of a DNA-based tool to provide a novel, non-invasive test for selection of embryos with the highest healthy development potential and thereby to allow a single-embryo transfer approach. Starting with the hypothesis that fragmentation occurring during embryo cleavage should imply releasing of nuclear and/or mitochondrial DNA into the culture medium, Dr Scaruffi proposes to deeply characterize nuclear and/or mitochondrial DNA in embryo culture medium, in order to investigate whether both cell-free nucleic acid types may provide additional, reliable, predictive parameters for embryo viability and implantation potential.

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