Chiara Romualdi
Professoressa ordinaria di Biologia molecolare nell'Università di Padova

- s.c.r. eletta il 15 giugno 2024

CURRENT AND PREVIOUS POSITIONS
From Jan. the 9th 2023 Full professor in Molecular Biology, Department of Biology, University of
Padova
2014-2022 Associate Professor in Molecular Biology, Department of Biology, University of Padova.
2005-2014 Assistant Professor in Statistics at the Department of Biology, University of Padova.
EDUCATION
14-02-2001 Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Padova.
17-10-1996 BS degree with honors in Statistical Sciences at the University of Padova
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
2021-now Deputy coordinator of the PhD School in Bioscience of the University of Padova;
2021-now Scientific board member of the II level Master in "Analisi dati Omici", Department
of cardio-toraco vascular sciences and public health University of Padova;
2020-2021 Member of the VQR 15-19 Commission of the Department of Biology;
2013-now Coordinator of the Commission of the Informatic Services of the Department of
Biology;
2009-now Board Member of the PhD School in Bioscience of the University of Padova;
 GRANTS AND FUNDING RESOURCES
Projects as PI
AIRC (2019-2023) "Predicting stage I ovarian cancer relapse: from a functional genomic approach
to clinical implications" (PI 462,000 Euros)
Progetto Dipartimentale BIRD180229 (2018-2020): "Immunogenomic analyses in ovarian cancers to
reveal immune-related subtypes with prognostic relevance" (38.000 Euros)
AIRC (2016-2018) "Integrated landscape analysis of genomic and transcriptomic defects to predict
serous ovarian cancer progression" (PI 212,000 Euros)
International Progressive MS Alliance (2015-2020) Multicentric project "Can the degree of
meningeal inflammation and cortical pathology be used to stratify early progressive MS patients?"
(Unit PI Chiara Romualdi, 30,000 Euros)
CARIPLO banking foundation (2013-2016) "Clinical, pathological and prognostic impact of
transcriptional alterations in epithelial ovarian cancer." (Unit PI, 95,000 Euros)
CARIPARO banking foundation excellence grant (2012-2015) "Role of coding and non-coding
RNA in chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms: from bioinformatics to translational research"
(Unit PI, 100,000 Euros)
Progetto Ateneo CPDA119031 (2012-2014) "A system biology approach to studying epithelial
ovarian cancer" (55.000 Euros)
CARIPARO banking foundation excellence grant (2006-2009) "A computational approach to the
study of skeletal muscle genomic expression in health and disease" (Unit PI, 90,000s).

SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION
Description of the research
My research focuses on developing innovative methods for personalized medicine, integrating genomic
and computational approaches. I entered this field after completing my PhD in Statistics in 2001, initially
concentrating on transcriptional signatures in muscular disorders. By 2005, I shifted my focus to cancer
genomics, which has become my primary research area.
The rapid advancements in biotechnology, facilitating terabyte-scale data generation in a single
experiment, have spurred extensive research in the bioinformatic field. My expertise in quantitative
analysis and biological sciences has played a pivotal role in this context, pushing my research from
computational development to practical biological application.
I began expanding my team in 2006, mentoring students and post-docs with diverse backgrounds in
statistic, informatic, biology, and mathematic. In 2008, with the support of the AIRC foundation, I
established my current primary research focus on ovarian cancer. Our work involved identifying new
molecular signatures, both diagnostic and prognostic, using innovative network-based computational
approaches on extensive ovarian cancer cohorts. The primary goals were the identification of the disease
when it is still at its early stages and the prediction of the patient therapy response.
We recently transitioned to single-cell data to explore tumor microenvironment composition and to
investigate the crosstalk between cancer and immune cells, comparing primary tumors and metastases.
On the computational front, single-cell and spatial data present new challenges for data management
and analysis. Therefore, we are currently dedicated to developing new statistical methods to analyze
single-cell and spatial data within a network perspective.
Scientific production in numbers
§ 171 publications on international journals.
§ 1 book and 3 book chapters.
§ H-index = 58 (Google Scholar)
§ Total citation number 10297 (Google Scholar)
§ Mean IF 6,17; Median IF 4,87;
 For the complete list of publication see here
Books
Manuela Helmer Citterich, Fabrizio Ferrè, Giulio Pavesi, Graziano Pesole, Chiara Romualdi
(2018) "Fondamenti di bioinformatica", Zanichelli Editore, Bologna
Book Chapters
- Calura E and Romualdi C (2022) miRNA bioinformatics and pathway analysis In: Massimo
Negrini, George Calin, Carlo Croce (ed) MicroRNA in Human Malignancies, Elsevier, Academic Press pp
141-148
- Romualdi C. and Lanfranchi G. (2008) Statistical tools for gene expression analysis and system biology
and related web resources In: Stephen Krawetz (ed) Bioinformatics for Systems Biology Springer, The
Humana Press Inc. ch11. pp 181-205
- Romualdi C. and Bortoluzzi S. (2004) Web Tools for Statistical Analysis of SAGE Data. In: San Ming
Wang, (ed), SAGE Technologies: Current Innovations and Future Trends. Norfolk, England : Horizon
Bioscience, ch.6, pp. 109-128